The National Center for Black Philanthropy, Inc. conducts National Conferences on Black Philanthropy, which began in Philadelphia in 1997. Although only 300 people were expected to attend the First National Conference, nearly 600 registered and many more monitored the sessions. Two years later a Second National Conference was held in Oakland, California attended by more than 500 people. This conference was followed by the Third National Conference in 2001 in Detroit, Michigan, and the Forth National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia in 2003. The most recent conference, the Fifth National Conference, took place in June 2005 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The National Conference on Black Philanthropy has become the pre-eminent gathering place to discuss, celebrate and plan for African American achievement in philanthropy. The conferences feature, on average, over forty workshops, panels and plenary sessions exploring black participation in grant making, fundraising, individual giving, and faith-based philanthropy through the Historically Black Church.
The historic First National Conference “celebrated the past and planned for the future.” The second conference in Oakland was aimed at “Moving the Agenda Forward.” The Detroit conference explored black philanthropy throughout the African Diaspora. The Fourth Conference, "Black Philanthropy: From Words to Action," focused on practical solutions, actions, lessons learned, and what works. The Fifth National Conference focused on “Building a Future Worthy of Our Past.” All the conferences highlighted successful programs and strategies and showed how they might be replicated elsewhere.
In addition to Plenary Sessions and Concurrent Workshops, the conferences also offer Distinguished Speakers and Distinguished Panels, a General Reception, an Awards Dinner, a Prayer Breakfast, and an Exhibit Hall. Two other programs are also offered: one for local African American business people, Black Business and Philanthropy, and the other, Endowment Training for African American Organizations focuses on nonprofit organizations.
The National Conferences have enjoyed the strong support of many national and local funders, including the Ford Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Fannie Mae Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Twenty-First Century Foundation, the Minneapolis Foundation, and the National Black United Fund, among others. Corporate sponsors have included the Coca-Cola Company, Credit Suisse Boston, Comerica Bank, Target, Ford Motor Company, DaimlerChrysler and Mervyn's California. Other sponsors have included the United Way of America, the Alford Group, and the AFRAM Group.
Click here for more information on the Seventh National Conference in 2009.
Because of the unqualified success of the national conferences, the National Center has collaborated with several organizations around the country to plan and conduct regional conferences in the years between the national conferences. Regional conferences, modeled after the national conferences, have also been well attended and highly successful in their own right. These conferences provide an opportunity for groups to address uniquely local issues and concerns to which the national conferences could not devote much attention. There have been 13 regional conferences since they were first introduced in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1998. Since then, regional conferences have been held in Greensboro, North Carolina (twice); Boston, Massachusetts; Baltimore, Maryland; Indianapolis, Indiana; New Haven, Connecticut; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Jamaica, West Indies, the first regional conference in the Caribbean held in 2005. Plans are now underway for regional conferences in 2008.
Consult Conference Updates for the most current information on the Regional Conferences.
Click here for more information on Regional Conferences.
Black Business and Philanthropy
The Black
Business and Philanthropy program is aimed at African American business owners,
entrepreneurs and black executives of "majority" companies to promote
increased philanthropy. Its primary goal is to educate black business people
about how modern philanthropy can help them achieve their own goals of "giving
back" to the community, while also doing more business with the multi-billion
dollar Third Sector (non-profit) market. The program stresses use of strategies
that demonstrate that philanthropy is both good business and good for business.
The Black Business and Philanthropy program was introduced as part of the Second National Conference on Black Philanthropy in May 1999 in Oakland, California. The program was planned with the active involvement of a local black businessman/philanthropist who enlisted the help of the San Francisco Black Chamber of Commerce. As a result, more than 100 African American business people from the Bay Area joined business people from the conference in attending the program, which also included honoring a local black businessman for his philanthropy. Similar programs have been conducted at all national and regional conferences. Most were planned with active involvement of the local Black Chambers of Commerce.
Black Business & Philanthropy programs and Awards Ceremonies are conducted at all regional and national conferences.
Endowment Development for African American Organizations
Based on a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the National Center completed a research project into the experiences of African American organizations in planning for, funding and managing endowments. One outcome of this project has been the development of a training program designed to instruct African American organizations in endowment planning, fundraising and management. The program was introduced in February 2001 at an all-day training session in Baltimore and as a pre-conference workshop at the Third National Conference on Black Philanthropy in Detroit.
Topics covered by the workshop include organizational "readiness" to begin an endowment program (i.e. how to determine whether or not your organization is positioned to devote the time, energy and resources necessary for endowment building without jeopardizing other programs and services), procedures for conducting an endowment fundraising campaign, and policies for investing and managing endowment funds.
The Center has expanded the training to two full days and is making it available to groups around the country on a "fee for service" basis. The inaugural session of the new program was held August 7-8, 2002 at the United Way of America headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.
The Endowment Training programs have been integrated into all the regional and national conferences since 2002.The Endowment Training Program is conducted on a fee-for-service basis, i.e. a combination of fundraising and registration fees. Groups interested in bringing this program to their areas should contact the National Center for details.
Fundraising
for Communities of Color
A comprehensive, three-day training
program in resource development created by and for Communities of Color.
This program ended in
November 2006.
These pages are being provided for informational purposes only
The National Center conducts a "Public Education Program" in fulfillment of its goal to educate the public about the importance of black philanthropy, its contributions to American society, and its potential for growth and further development. Through utilization of print, broadcast media and the Internet, the Public Education Program is essential to promoting and marketing all of the Center's programs and activities. The Public Education Program has six components: 1) a web site used to communicate information about the Center, its programs and activities; 2) a Member's newsletter (The Partnership) that features people, places and issues that are important to African American philanthropy and to the Members of the Center; 3) periodic press releases, media advisories, and appearances on radio and television talk shows; 4) publishing books, pamphlets and other documents about African American philanthropy, such as the "Proceedings" of the national conferences; 5) publicity and public relations to support all of the Center's activities and programs; and 6) maintaining a portable exhibit about the National Center to increase its visibility and communicate its Mission at meetings and conferences of other major national groups and associations.
The National Center has been directly or indirectly responsible for dozens of articles on Black philanthropy, as well as our national and regional conferences, that have appeared in such publications as USA Today, Black Enterprise, Essence Magazine, Foundation News and Commentary, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Black Issues in Higher Education, and local daily and weekly newspapers all over the country and in the Caribbean.
In 2001 the Center completed a research project on the experiences of African American organizations in planning and building endowments. Thanks to this project, the National Center now possesses the most detailed and current information on the subject available anywhere in the country. This research forms the basis of the Endowment Training Program for African American Organizations. The next research project the Center will conduct will be a study of the giving behavior of black businesses. It will seek to answer questions about what types of black-owned businesses give, to whom do they give, how much, do they have formal giving programs, what is the entry point for giving? The research is expected to be completed by the fall of 2006.
