Today, the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) announced that Lilly Endowment has awarded a $100 million unrestricted grant to support its capital campaign.
The grant will go towards the college fund’s $1 billion capital campaign’s five components: student scholarships, unrestricted funds to enhance the endowments for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), capacity-building programs for member HBCUs, cash reserves and endowed funds for its support for their annual campaign.
“For nearly 80 years, Lilly Endowment has supported UNCF’s efforts to strengthen its member institutions and thereby enhance the educational attainment of their students,” said N. Clay Robbins, Chairman and CEO of Lilly Endowment.
Based in Indianapolis, Ind., Lilly Endowment is a private foundation of the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company. In 2015, the endowment committed $50 million for the UNCF to launch the Career Pathways Initiative, which awards grants to four-year HBCUs and Predominantly Black Institutions (PBI) to help students gain the knowledge, preparation, insight and skills needed for meaningful employment in the technology-driven economy.
“Since our founding in 1944, Lilly Endowment has been a consistent and significant philanthropic support,” said Dr. Michael Lomax, President and CEO of UNCF. “This $100 million grant is the largest unrestricted private grant we have ever received.”
Lomax says the UNCF will build a pooled endowment fund to increase the endowments of their 37 member institutions, including Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine and Spelman College, by $10 million or $370 million.
According to UNCF’s Fredrick D. Patterson Research Institute, the median endowment for its member institutions is $15.9 million….
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