Tag Archives: philanthropy

Starting a Philanthropy Club: A Collective Approach to African American Giving

“I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.” – Dr. Maya Angelou. 

If you’ve been considering joining or starting an philanthropy club with your family, friends, or fellow HBCU alumni but are unsure if it’s the right move, you’ve come to the right place. The answer is it is absolutely the right move.

A few facts regarding African American organizations and nonprofits:

Philanthropy clubs can be a powerful tool for leveraging African American philanthropy from like-minded individuals. They not only enhance your financial literacy and knowledge about African American and African Diaspora organizations but also empower you to make informed philanthropic decisions. By pooling your resources with your family, you can collectively grow your impact African American nonprofits finances and outreach, fostering a sense of confidence and control over institutional development and empowerment.

Keep reading as we discuss why you might want to start an investment club and the steps you’ll need to take.

Why You’ll Want to Start a Philanthropy Club?

One of the biggest reasons to start an philanthropy club is that they want to learn and share ideas with people who share their values. It makes sense to start a philanthropy club with family, friends, or HBCU alumni because, most of the time, your values are well-aligned. Yes, you may have different opinions, but your values are generally on the same page.

Philanthropy clubs can be a great way to learn about African American causes, organizations, and nonprofits. Because some members may be more seasoned donors, givers, or active in the nonprofit space, they can share their knowledge on certain topics.

Philanthropy clubs are a great way to magnify small donations by each member into a large donation by a focused collective. the increase the impact associated with investing. However, with the rise in so many commission-free brokers, the fees for making a high volume of trades aren’t as big of a deal.

How to Start an Investment Club

If you’re ready to get your philanthropy club with family, friends, or HBCU alumni off the ground, you’ll want to follow these steps to ensure success:

1. Find and Organize Members

Finding members for a philanthropy club is generally one of the most challenging steps. However, it’s a little easier if you’re looking to start one with your family, friends, or HBCU alumni. Either way, ensuring the fit is correct before jumping in is crucial.

A solid philanthropy club should have at least 5 people but no more than 15 or 20. You must have enough ideas, but too many can make things more difficult. Each person will be required to identify a cause, organization, or nonprofit. Then, each month, a different member will present their cause, organization, or nonprofit to the group.

Before extending an invitation to different anyone, ask yourself a few questions. These will help you see if it will be a good fit.

  • Do you trust the person you’re thinking of inviting to be consistent and involved?
  • Will they bring research and ideas to the meetings?
  • Are they organized?
  • Are they going to pay the monthly donation on time?

2. Determine Your Goals

Once you have your members set, you must agree on your goals. Most clubs’ goals will be making donations and learning from others. But how are you going to get to that point?

It’s important to take some time to understand each member’s philanthropic approach. Are they willing to take on more risk or prefer to be more conservative? Do you want to stick with only well known organizations, or are members interested in startup organizations as well? Do they only want to give to domestic organizations? Or are they willing to give to African Diaspora nonprofits working in Haiti, Jamaica, UK, or Africa?

Developing a plan of attack and ensuring that each member is on the same page will be vital to success.

3. Decide How You Want To Give

Deciding on if you want to setup a legal structure for your philanthropy club is important because potentially over time, your club can setup an endowment that invest donors money and that can grow into a significant and sustainable amount of money. Having the necessary legal protections is going to be important. If your philanthropy club decides to actually invest its donations into investments that will grow over time so that the club has larger and more sustainable sums to give is important to think about.

The other option is to simply give everyone the option to donate on their own once the cause, organization, or nonprofit is decided upon. This route relies on the honor system or some type of peer accountability towards giving.

Each philanthropy club must do what works best for them and also realize that the club is allowed to evolve over time.

The Bottom Line

Philanthropy clubs are a great way to pool your donor funds and learn from other members. Just be sure that you join a group where everyone is willing to listen to ideas and pull their own weight within the club.

5 Ways Black Men Can Invest In Black Boys

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” – Frederick Douglas

The statistics and data around Black boys/men is and has been alarming for decades. As African Americans in the post-Civil Rights era began to abandon our own institutions arguably nobody has suffered as a result more than Black boys. In almost every category of substance Black boys/men trail and trail significantly against the overall society and within our own community. The consequences of this is seen in the struggles of our communities, institutions, and families. Where are the Black men is a question that is asked so often in spaces that in many ways it has become redundant. Unfortunately, the answer is they were lost as Black boys never to be seen from again in many ways. To become substantive members of our community, families, and institutions requires education, training, mentorship, and so much more. The reality on the ground is that there is very little in the way of organizations or resources that provides enough of that. While Black women have taken upon themselves to create, support, and fund initiatives that support the development and growth of Black girls, Black men have not done the same for Black boys. Conversations between Black men about how they can help Black boys tends to seemingly 99 percent revolve around sports as an answer. Black boys and sports has become a catch all for all things that ail Black boys and yet the outcomes suggest that is a failed investment. The question now is what going forward can Black men do to holistically develop and improve the outcomes of Black boys. Take responsibility and accountability for them. The time for deflecting blame is a broken record in many instances and while there are external forces at work constantly against African American men and our boys, we would be remiss not to as men deal with the protection and providing for them within our control.

  1. Pre-K-5 Investment Is Imperative. African American boys get lost and they get lost early. The majority of any investment made into African American boys needs to be made in early childhood development. This is where boys develop cultural identity, mental health fundamentals, educational confidence, and more. Any conversations that we have about Black boys needs to be heavily weighted on reaching them as early as possible and as often as possible. The foundation of anything being built will always be the most important part of that structure.
  2. Donating To African American Organizations That Specifically Support Black Boys. The easiest thing any of us can do is make sure the organizations that are trying to help our boys have the resources they need to not only fulfill their mission, but to excel at their mission and to exceed their missions expectations. For African American organizations who receive less than 2 percent of all national funding into NPOs, this is a mountainous hurdle. African American men can simply make sure they are active donors if they can afford to be and anything is better than nothing as the old saying goes. African American men can do this individually, but the stronger pathway would be as a collective. Two friends or twenty friends of African American men giving together is powerful for accountability towards giving, conversations about giving, strategic pathways to giving, and of course more capital towards giving.
  3. Create More Organizations That Support Black Boys. Simply put, there just are not many African American organizations that are targeted towards developing Black boys. Arguably, that is because African American men have not created them. This is where inevitably Black boys get funneled into sports and nothing else. Largely because that is what is available. Organizations that solely focus on and encourage Black boys to develop themselves educationally, mentally, artistically, and more are largely absent and in need of existence on the nonprofit landscape. African American men have to take the responsibility of identifying, cultivating, and developing areas where Black boys need development and creating organizations around them. To be clear, we are not talking about organizations where it is boys of color or side initiatives, but actual organizations being created where Black boys are the focus, period.
  4. Subsidizing Black Boys Supplemental Education. Black boys throughout K-12 do not get nearly enough supplemental education. The basic nature of supplemental education is everything that happens outside of a child’s classroom that makes them stronger in the classroom at its essence. Providing Black boys and their families assistance with tutoring costs, trips to museums, art galleries, academic camps, therapy, etc.
  5. Give Your TIME and Be PRESENT. This is free. For whatever reason, African American men are plain and simply absent in activities for Black boys beyond sports. From Boy Scouts, tutors, mentors, and civic engagement in general, African American men are just missing for reasons that are frustratingly hard to understand.

What are we up against? Here are just a few reasons African American men need to be at the forefront of the needs of African American boys.

  • The 2019 National Assessment of Education Progress data also highlighted that only 6% of 12th-grade Black males were reading at the proficient level and only 1% were reading at the advanced level.
  • In 2021, 76% of Black boys finished high school compared to 93% of Asian boys.
  • According to the National Center for Education Statistics, only 36% of Black male students completed a bachelor’s degree within six years (52% of Latino male students completed theirs within the same time. White males graduated at a rate of 63% in six years.)
  • U.S. Census reports African American boys 17 and under comprise over 40% of the African American males in poverty.
  • Of the 12.3 million African American men over the age of 25, almost 50% have only a high school diploma or less according to the U.S. Census.

There is a war going on against African American boys and African American men are leaving them to fight for themselves. Our boys are more than their physicality. They are thinkers, they are astronauts, teachers, gardeners, and so much more, but like a flower they too must be nourished and care for by us. African American men can not leave African American boys to experience the gauntlet of life too many of us have already lived.

The Love Is GONE: 2022’s HBCU Million Dollar Gifts

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Arguably, there are not enough donations in 2022 to even warrant an analysis but we are going to give it a try. The acute analysis is that HBCUs and alumni are going to have to prioritize creating wealthier alumni and using their alumni associations to leverage more aggressive investment vehicles which may otherwise be out of bounds for the institutions themselves. It also speaks to giving real thought to policies and strategy that can assist in that wealth creation. Reducing student loan debt loads, reducing time spent in maturation, increasing financial literacy requirements, and more need to be among serious conversation in order to help alumni get on the footing to wealth in both speed and probability. Years like this have been far too many in the midst of also battling underfunding by state and federal government. Not to mention the outright assault PWIs have launched in recent decades of trying to out HBCU HBCUs for African Americans and other minority groups. Of the three companies (pictured above) responsible for the wealth that allowed these individuals to give their Million Dollar Gifts – none were African American owned firms and their combined market caps were over $600 billion – an amount that is almost 40 percent of African America’s entire buying power. Something else that needs to be strongly considered in the wealth development conversation among alumni and administrations. Why are our alumni not creating more firms that can lead to transformative wealth and what can we do to assist?

Overall donations to all colleges and universities were down significantly in 2022 dropping under 300 Million Dollar Gifts given for the first time since 2010. This seems to be a fairly direct correlation to the economy and stock market’s rough 2022. Given that most wealthy donors have major investments tied to business ownership and investments and the Federal Reserve putting forth monetary policy in 2022 that many argued slammed the brakes on the stock market, it is no surprise that wealthy donors deemed themselves quite skittish. And per usual, when America/PWIs get a cold, then African America/HBCUs get pneumonia as seen by only 3 Million Dollar Gifts finding their way to HBCUs. None from HBCU alumni. The median donation was 2 to 1 in terms of donor value and the average donation was 4.5 to 1 in terms of donor value between PWI MDGs and HBCU MDGs. 2022 also provided the very first $1 billion donation to a college or university with Stanford University receiving a $1.1 billion pledge from John and Ann Doerr (both whom are Rice University alumnus).

This is a concerning trend going into uncertain financial times for the U.S. economy in particular. Colleges overall do tend to pick up more students during recessionary times with people losing jobs many see it as an opportunity to go to school or back to school. Unfortunately, tuition revenue is already too much of what HBCUs rely heavily upon and those new students are not likely in any position to give Million Dollar Gifts in the near future. HBCU philanthropy as it pertains to Million Dollar Gifts operates largely on a lottery like reality both relying on hope and depending on those outside of the culture and outside the alumni bases. With the changing sands of higher education shifting beneath our feet the resources to see tomorrow grow urgent with every passing day.

$1 Million Plus Donations To All Colleges: 275

$100 Million Plus Donations To All Colleges: 14

$1 Million Plus Donations Value To All Colleges: $7.1 Billion

$1 Million Plus Median Donation To All Colleges: $10.0 Million

$1 Million Plus Average Donation To All Colleges: $25.9 Million

$1 Million Plus Donations To HBCUs: 3

$100 Million Plus Donations To HBCUs: 0

$1 Million Plus Donations Value To HBCUs: $17.0 Million

$1 Million Plus Median Donation To HBCUs: $5.0 Million

$1 Million Plus Average Donation To HBCUs: $5.7 Million

HBCU Percentage of Donations To All Colleges: 1.1%

HBCU Percentage of Donation Value To All Colleges: 0.2%

1. Arthur M. Blank (pictured) – $10.0 million
Recipient: Spelman College
Source of Wealth: Home Depot

2. Reed Hastings & Patty Quillin – $5.0 million
Recipient: Tougaloo College
Source of Wealth: Media & Entertainment

3. Kenneth Chenault & Kathryn Chenault   – $2.0 million
Recipient: Howard University
Source of Wealth: Education

Source: Chronicle of Philanthropy

It Was Nice While It Lasted: 2021 Million Dollar HBCU Donations Drop By 73 Percent

The results of philanthropy are beyond calculation, but they are calculated. – William A. Foster, IV

After 2020 gave us unprecedented major giving to HBCUs, the fairy dust wore off just as quickly come 2021. Had this year been not followed by 2020, then arguably it would be a good year by normal standards. Instead, it is a harsh reminder that HBCUs rarely on any level receive an equitable share of funding both by state and federal governments and private giving to colleges and universities. 2020’s giving it could be argued was a response to the protests and social unrest that spilled over from the death of George Floyd. However, as we stated previously that is neither sustainable and questionably moral. This year’s list while significantly smaller looks much the same as last year in that it is buoyance is upheld by donors outside of the African American community.

HBCUs were able to pull in three percent of the million plus donations to all colleges and universities, which constitutes their makeup in the overall landscape of the higher education system. However, the value of those donations amounted to less than one percent of the overall donation value to colleges and universities. A significant drop off from 2020’s astounding 15 percent of donation value. Very interested to note that PWIs saw donations of $100 million plus double from 2020 to 2021 going from seven to fourteen. No HBCU has ever seen a nine-figure donation and there are only a handful of African Americans capable of doing so. This once again leaves the fate of African American NPOs in the hands of other community’s wealth and generosity. It also begs the question for the survival of HBCUs in particular long-term. Despite 2020’s gifts, we would be remiss to act as if one year of donations can rectify over one hundred plus years of negligence and fiscal hostility.

MacKenzie Scott continued to be HBCUs’ best friend with two of the ten donations on the list coming from her philanthropy. Mr. and Mrs. Tyler’s donation is one of the largest alumni gifts (if not the largest) ever to an HBCU. Worthy of a conversation itself is that HBCUs are still not producing a pipeline of wealthy alumni. Something critical to increasing the probability of transformative donors into HBCU coffers. With only two known HBCU billionaires among all of its alumni, the question of “Can HBCUs Produce Billionaires?” remains not only a relevant question, but an absolutely necessary conversation that must be had between HBCU alumni and administrations.

$1 Million Plus Donations To All Colleges: 316

$100 Million Plus Donations To All Colleges: 14

$1 Million Plus Donations Value To All Colleges: $8.1 Billion

$1 Million Plus Median Donation To All Colleges: $11.1 Million

$1 Million Plus Average Donation To All Colleges: $25.5 Million

$1 Million Plus Donations To HBCUs: 10

$100 Million Plus Donations To HBCUs: 0

$1 Million Plus Donations Value To HBCUs: $66.7 Million

$1 Million Plus Median Donation To HBCUs: $4.0 Million

$1 Million Plus Average Donation To HBCUs: $6.7 Million

HBCU Percentage of Donations To All Colleges: 3.2%

HBCU Percentage of Donation Value To All Colleges: 0.8%

1. MacKenzie Scott  – $20 million
Recipient: Charles R. Drew Medicine
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

2. Calvin E. Tyler and Tina Tyler (pictured bottom right) – $20 million
Recipient: Morgan State University
Source of Wealth: N/A

3. S. Donald Sussman  – $6 million
Recipient: University of the Virgin Islands
Source of Wealth: Finance

4. Eddie Brown and Sylvia Brown (pictured bottom left) – $5 million
Recipient: Howard University
Source of Wealth: Investments

5. Anonymous Donor – $5 million
Recipient: Howard University
Source of Wealth: N/A

6. Shervin Pishevar and Sarah Pishevar Haynes – $3 million
Recipient: Howard University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Finance, Transportation

7. Frank Garrison and Amy Garrison – $2.5 million
Recipient: Fisk University
Source of Wealth: Finance, Real Estate, Law

8. Anonymous Donor – $2.2 million
Recipient: Alabama A&M University
Source of Wealth: N/A

9. MacKenzie Scott – $2 million
Recipient: Meharry Medical College
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

10. Mark Malveaux and Dawn Malveaux (pictured top) – $1 million
Recipient: Southern University System
Source of Wealth: Law

Source: Chronicle of Philanthropy

UNPRECEDENTED: MacKenzie Scott Transforms HBCU Endowments With A Flurry Of Million Dollar Gifts In 2020

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving. – Erma Bombeck

The year of George Floyd’s death and the European American guilt that accompanied it can be argued was the catalyst that led to the largest flurry of million dollar plus donations to HBCUs ever seen and it was led almost solely by one woman – MacKenzie Scott, the quietly known co-founder of Amazon who has emerged as a powerhouse in the world of philanthropy. Of the reported 37 donations of $1 million or more as reported by the Chronicle of Philanthropy to HBCUs, Ms. Scott is responsible for 22 of them. Her donation to Prairie View A&M University was the largest in the school’s history and the largest ever to a public HBCU. Questions of where the money actually ends up and who is managing it given Prairie View’s relationship to Texas A&M are worth investigation by PVAMU alumni. All the same, HBCU endowments began 2020 standing at approximately $2.1 billion combined. 2020’s million dollar plus donations to HBCUs are equivalent to roughly 33 percent of that – in one year. To put in perspective, these donations to HBCUs in 2020 were greater than Howard University’s 150 plus year old endowment and would be the equivalent of someone donating approximately $15 billion to Harvard’s endowment, which Ms. Scott actually could do. Again, unprecedented.

We have expanded our review of the data collected to include more information regarding those major donations to HBCUs as well as their presence in the overall landscape of major donations to all colleges and universities. Are HBCUs getting their share? Although HBCUs make up three percent of the United States higher education ecosystem, they do not tend to receive three percent of the philanthropic donations or value. This year breaks the mold with HBCUs receiving over 11 percent of the major donations and over 15 percent of the major donation value. Unprecedented is putting it mildly. While this infusion is beyond needed and could not come at a better time as many higher education institutions across the country are having real questions of future and long-term fiscal viability, those with well position endowments have far less to worry about in their ability to have the resources necessary to pivot in an ever changing education landscape. Despite this landslide of donations, there are still no HBCUs with a $1 billion endowment or more. Howard University is still leading the way and looking like the inevitable first, but after Howard and Spelman, there are a myriad of questions and concerns as to the endowment health of every other HBCU.

Despite no African American having the wealth to give at the scale of MacKenzie Scott, it still begs the question of where are the African American wealthy in making major donations to HBCUs on a more consistent and sustainable basis. Only 4 of the 37 donations on 2020’s list come from African American families. George Floyd’s death was clearly a catalyst for much of this giving to African American institutions in 2020, but relying on Black death as a means to spur major giving is morally problematic and acutely unsustainable. There is no reason that this list every year is not made up of predominantly African Diaspora and African American households. For reasons that are complex though, that has still yet to happen. It is also worth noting which schools received donations. While the usual suspects of Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Howard University are there, one-third of the donations went to public HBCUs whom rarely find themselves in the philanthropic spotlight. Lesser known, but just as important HBCUs like Claflin University, Lincoln University (PA), and Xavier University (LA) also showed up. A vital need is for the smaller HBCUs to receive major gifts, HBCUs like Texas College, Florida Memorial University, Virginia University at Lynchburg also badly need to receive major gifts to shore up their fiscal futures. African American households must be the one to lead that charge if major giving to HBCUs is to be burning bright tomorrow and not just a firecracker today.

$1 Million Plus Donations To All Colleges: 329

$100 Million Plus Donations To All Colleges: 7

$1 Million Plus Donations Value To All Colleges: $4.7 Billion

$1 Million Plus Median Donation To All Colleges: $6.0 Million

$1 Million Plus Average Donation To All Colleges: $14.4 Million

$1 Million Plus Donations To HBCUs: 37*

$100 Million Plus Donations To HBCUs: 0

$1 Million Plus Donations Value To HBCUs: $716.7 Million

$1 Million Plus Median Donation To HBCUs: $20.0 Million

$1 Million Plus Average Donation To HBCUs: $19.4 Million

HBCU Percentage of Donations To All Colleges: 11.2%

HBCU Percentage of Donation Value To All Colleges: 15.2%

1. MacKenzie Scott (pictured) – $50 million
Recipient: Prairie View A&M University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

2. MacKenzie Scott – $45 million
Recipient: North Carolina A&T State University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

3. Reed Hastings & Patty Quillin  – $40 million
Recipient: Morehouse College
Source of Wealth: Technology

4. Reed Hastings & Patty Quillin – $40 million
Recipient: Spelman College
Source of Wealth: Technology

5. Reed Hastings & Patty Quillin – $40 million
Recipient: United Negro College Fund
Source of Wealth: Technology

6. MacKenzie Scott – $40 million
Recipient: Morgan State University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

7. MacKenzie Scott – $40 million
Recipient: Norfolk State University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

8. MacKenzie Scott – $40 million
Recipient: Howard University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

9. MacKenzie Scott – $30 million
Recipient: Virginia State University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

10. MacKenzie Scott– $30 million
Recipient: Winston-Salem State University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

11. MacKenzie Scott – $30 million
Recipient: Hampton University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

12. MacKenzie Scott – $25 million
Recipient: Alcorn State University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

13. MacKenzie Scott – $25 million
Recipient: Bowie State University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

14. MacKenzie Scott  – $20 million
Recipient: Claflin University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

15. MacKenzie Scott – $20 million
Recipient: Delaware State University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

16. MacKenzie Scott – $20 million
Recipient: Lincoln University (PA)
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

17. MacKenzie Scott – $20 million
Recipient: Tuskegee University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

18. MacKenzie Scott – $20 million
Recipient: Xavier University (Louisiana)
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

19. MacKenzie Scott – $20 million
Recipient: Morehouse College
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

20. MacKenzie Scott – $20 million
Recipient: University of Maryland-Eastern Shore
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

21. MacKenzie Scott – $20 million
Recipient: Spelman College
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

22. MacKenzie Scot– $15 million
Recipient: Clark Atlanta University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

23. MacKenzie Scott – $15 million
Recipient: Elizabeth City State University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

24. Anonymous Donor – $10 million
Recipient: Prairie View A&M University
Source of Wealth: N/A

25. Bruce Karsh and Martha Karsh  – $10 million
Recipient: Howard University
Source of Wealth: Finance

26. Seth Klarman and Beth Klarman – $10 million
Recipient: Spelman College
Source of Wealth: Finance

27. MacKenzie Scott – $6 million
Recipient: Tougaloo College
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

28. MacKenzie Scott – $5 million
Recipient: Dillard University
Source of Wealth: Technology, Retail

29. Oprah Winfrey – $2 million
Recipient: Tennessee State University
Source of Wealth: Media & Entertainment

30. Matthew Cullinan and Anna Reilly – $1.7 million
Recipient: Winston-Salem State University
Source of Wealth: Education

31. Jim Murren and Heather Murren – $1 million
Recipient: Howard University
Source of Wealth: Finance

32. Charles Butt – $1 million
Recipient: Prairie View A&M University
Source of Wealth: Retail

33. Charles Barkley – $1 million
Recipient: Miles College
Source of Wealth: Entertainment

34. Kenneth Chenault and Kathryn Chenault – $1 million
Recipient: Morehouse College
Source of Wealth: Finance

35. Joan Johnson – $1 million
Recipient: Spelman College
Source of Wealth: Retail

36. Frank Baker & Laura Day  – $1 million
Recipient: Spelman College
Source of Wealth: Finance

37. Charles Barkley – $1 million
Recipient: Tuskegee University
Source of Wealth: Entertainment

Source: Chronicle of Philanthropy

*Michael Bloomberg’s pledge of $100 million in 2020 to the 4 HBCU medical schools was not included in our list which was sourced strictly from the Chronicle of Philanthropy.