August is Black Philanthropy Month (BPM), a global celebration and concerted campaign to elevate African descent giving. Created in 2011 by Dr. Jackie Bouvier Copeland and the Pan-African Women’s Philanthropy Network (PAWPNet), BPM is celebrating its 10th Anniversary in 2021 where the theme is “TENacity: Making Equity Real.” We encourage you to visit their site at www.blackphilanthropymonth.com to learn more about this effort to elevate Black Philanthropy.
Fittingly, “Celebrate and Elevate” is the theme for CFGG’s unique and distinctive addition to the rich Black philanthropic narrative. This August, in fact, the Black Investments in Greensboro (BIG) Equity Fund celebrates its one-year anniversary. Thanks to a committed leadership committee and support from the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro’s staff, the BIG Equity Fund has inspired commitments from over 120 donors approaching a total of $1.5 million towards a $3 million dollar goal. This is quite an accomplishment given that this has taken place during an ongoing global pandemic. These visionary community leaders have demonstrated courage and optimism in establishing a permanently endowed fund knowing that we would have limited opportunities to engage with audiences in person or at live events about the BIG Equity Fund’s vision.
As we celebrate the contributions of these BIG Equity Fund donors, we also want to elevate what BIG Equity Fund represents beyond the fundraising goal. BIG Equity represents so much more. BIG Equity Fund exemplifies the extensive history of Black communities not sitting idly by and waiting for help. Black-initiated and Black-led, the Fund is timely, relevant, and needed.
It inspires those outside of the Black community to leverage their investment of time, talent, and treasure toward community building, making Greensboro a good place for people of diverse races and ethnicities to work together on raising up all people.
BIG Equity Fund represents a new direction of exposing, educating, and engaging Black donors in the tools of the Community Foundation by inspiring a change in mindset for giving that moves beyond charity. It also provides new points of entry to use philanthropy strategically to invest back into Black communities.
Ultimately BIG represents LOVE – for humankind (philanthropy), for Greensboro (place), and for future generations of Black Greensboro, knowing that our collective philanthropy will generate an inheritance that leads to lasting and beneficial change (legacy)!
For more information, please contact Athan Lindsay at alindsay@cfgg.org or 336-790-6339