News

Bank of America invested $13 million in Native communities in 2020
The financial services company made a $10 million investment in Native American Bank and awarded grants totaling $3.1 million to nonprofits working in Native American communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19....

Rice Family Foundation receives $10 million gift in stocks
The gift of Utz shares by the third and fourth generations of the company’s founding family follows a gift of $10 million in September 2020 and will enable the foundation to increase its annual grantmaking for residents of Hanover and central Pennsylvania....

Rockefeller Foundation invests $30 million in COVID test procurement
Made through RF Catalytic Capital, the foundation's public charity subsidiary, the investment will enable Thermo Fisher Scientific to procure and stock COVID-19 tests for distribution to the twenty-three states participating in the State and Territory Alliance for Testing, followed by other public and private buyers....

Open Society Foundations announces 2020 Puerto Rico Youth Fellows
Ten Puerto Rican leaders between the ages of 18 and 27 will receive $50,000 over eighteen months to work on projects aimed at advancing justice, promoting human rights, and helping underserved communities....

NAACP LDF launches $40 million civil rights lawyers pipeline program
Funded by a $40 million gift from a donor who wishes to remain anonymous, the Marshall-Motley Scholars Program will support the education and training of fifty aspiring civil rights lawyers over the next two decades....

Rutgers University-Camden receives $3.5 million for scholars program
The largest gift in the history of Rutgers University-Camden will establish the Rayman L. Solomon Scholars program and provide annual student financial support to high-achieving students committed to public service....

Siemens Foundation, Northern Trust commit $10 million to CDFIs
With the goal of advancing racial and social equity in the real estate and healthcare industries, the companies will invest in the Enterprise Community Loan Fund and Primary Care Development Corporation....

HonorHealth receives $21.5 million for neuroscience research
The gift from businessman and philanthropist Robert Bové will support the scheduled opening of the Bob Bové Neuroscience Institute at HonorHealth in May and efforts to drive innovation at the HonorHealth Research and Innovation Institute....

Colby College Museum of Art receives collection of photographs
The gift of more than five hundred photographs from the collection of alumni William ('68) and Nancy Meyer Tsiaras ('68) includes works by Robert Capa, Margaret Bourke-White, Pedro Abascal, Ansel Adams, and Barbara Norfleet....

ECMC Foundation launches collaboration to support transfer students
With the goal of supporting shared learning around the challenges community college students face in transferring their credits to a four-year program, the Catalyzing Transfer Initiative awarded grants totaling nearly $4.5 million to five nonprofits....

NewSchools Venture Fund launches $6 million innovation initiative
Funding will be awarded in support of innovation and greater diversity in education leadership....

People in the News (01/17/2021): appointments, promotions, obituaries
The latest staff and board announcements from the philanthropic sector....

Kirby Foundation announces $13.8 million in 2020 grants
The funding includes grants for COVID-19 relief and to nonprofit organizations working in the areas of arts and humanities, education, the environment, health and medicine, human services, public policy, and religion....

Lumina Foundation awards $3.2 million for racial justice and equity
The eleven grants are the first awarded through the foundation's Racial Justice and Equity Fund....

Community Foundation Update (01/16/2021)
News and staff announcements from community foundations in Alabama, Arizona, California, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Vermont....

IDB, PepsiCo Foundation extend partnership in Latin America
PepsiCo and its foundation have committed $6 million over five years in support of projects aimed at generating solutions in the areas of water access, inclusive recycling, sustainable agriculture, and economic recovery....

Virginia Tech announces $10 million gift from alumni couple
The commitment includes $7.4 million in support of the newly renamed Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics and a previously announced $1.5 million gift to help address food insecurity among students....

$5 million gift to fund youth mental health research
The gift will establish the Fuss Family Research Fund at Harvard University in support of research aimed at understanding and preventing youth suicide....

UC Irvine Receives $10.4 million for art history, inclusive computing
The gift will establish a new center focused on making the field of computing more inclusive and provide support for graduate and undergraduate students pursuing coursework in art history....

Global Fund awarded $8.54 billion in grants in 2020
Of the $12.71 billion available for grant allocations in its current three-year funding cycle (2020-22), the fund approved $9.2 billion for 2020 and by the end of December had finalized all but $660 million of the total....

Lewis Prize for Music announces 2021 music education grants
Grants were awarded in support of efforts to provide young people with music education, strengthen their communities, and put music at the center of efforts to advance racial equity....

Mellon Foundation awards $72 million for 'Just Futures' projects
Grants of up to $5 million over three years were awarded to sixteen teams of humanities scholars who are studying periods of crisis and disruption for lessons that contribute to deeper public understanding of the nation's racist past and remedies that lead to a more socially just future....

Apple announces racial equity, justice initiatives
Part of a $100 million initiative announced by the tech giant in June 2020, the commitments include $25 million to establish a learning hub for HBCUs; scholarship, fellowship and grant programs in engineering; investments totaling $35 million in efforts to provide capital to minority-owned businesses; and a new Apple Development Academy in Detroit....

Brain & Behavior Research Foundation receives $8 million bequest
The bequest from former board chair Stephen Lieber, whose wife, Constance, served as president of BBRF from 1989 to 2007, will support research aimed at transforming the lives of people living with mental illness....

Starbucks commits $100 million for opportunity, equity, inclusion
With the goal of advancing racial equity and environmental resilience, the Starbucks Community Resilience Fund will invest $100 million by 2025 in small business growth and community development projects in BIPOC neighborhoods....

Elon Musk gives $5 million to Khan Academy
In a video thanking the SpaceX and Tesla Motors co-founder and his foundation, Khan Academy founder Salman Khan said the gift will enable the organization to "accelerate all sorts of content" for its hundred and twenty million users around the world....

2021 Charles Bronfman Prize awarded to Jessica Beckerman, Ari Johnson
The $100,000 prize was awarded to the co-founders of Muso, which provides community-based health care in Mali and Côte d'Ivoire through a Proactive Care model that deploys health workers who administer door-to-door home visits and doorstep care and provide quick and free access to public clinics....

Loan facility to address COVID-19 impacts on African health care
To be managed by Malaria No More, the Open Doors African Private Healthcare Initiative will work to address the economic impact of COVID-19 on the private health sectors in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda....