TheUnited Negro College Fund, also known as UNCF, is an American philanthropic organization that funds scholarships for underrepresented students and general operating support for 37 private Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). In 1943, Dr. Frederick D. Patterson wrote to The Pittsburgh Courier proposing the creation of an alliance of Black colleges that would raise money for their mutual benefit. UNCF was founded on April 25, 1944, under the leadership of Dr. Patterson, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, and others on the belief that there is strength in numbers—that HBCUs ought to make a joint effort to appeal for funds—as well as the belief that education was crucial to Black economic and social mobility. At the start, UNCF served 27 member colleges and universities, totaling 12,000 students. Its first campaign received the support of many prominent Americans including President Franklin D. Roosevelt and John D. Rockefeller, II. During its first annual campaign, the collective effort raised $765,000, equivalent to $10 million today, which is three times what its member institutions had raised separately the previous year.
Morehouse College is a private historically Black formerly Baptist men's liberal arts college in Downtown Atlanta, Georgia. Anchored by its main campus of 61 acres (25 ha) near Downtown Atlanta, the college has a variety of residential dorms and academic buildings east of Ashview Heights. Along with Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, and the Morehouse School of Medicine, the college is a member of the Atlanta University Center consortium. Founded by William Jefferson White in 1867 in response to the liberation of enslaved African-Americans following the American Civil War, Morehouse stressed religious instruction in the Baptist tradition. Growth in the mid-20th century led to strengthened finances, increased enrollment, and more academic competitiveness. The college has played a key role in the development of the civil rights movement and racial equality in the United States.
Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving African Americans. Most of these institutions were founded during the Reconstruction era after the Civil War and are concentrated in the Southern United States. They were primarily founded by Protestant religious groups, until the Second Morill Act of 1890 required educationally segregated states to provide African American, public higher-education schools in order to receive the Act's benefits. During the period of racial segregation in the United States, the majority of American institutions of higher education served predominantly white students, and disqualified or limited black American enrollment. Later on some universities, either after expanding their inclusion of black people and African Americans into their institutions or gaining the status of minority-serving institution, became Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs).
The Koch family foundations are a group of charitable foundations in the United States associated with the family of Fred C. Koch. The most prominent of these are the Charles Koch Foundation and the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, created by Charles Koch and David Koch, two sons of Fred C. Koch who own the majority of Koch Industries, an oil, gas, paper, and chemical conglomerate which is the US's second-largest privately held company. Charles' and David's foundations have provided millions of dollars to a variety of organizations, including libertarian and conservative think tanks. Areas of funding include think tanks, political advocacy, climate change denial, higher education scholarships, cancer research, arts, and science.
Thomas Joyner is an American radio personality, host, philanthropist and former musician. Joyner is the former host of the nationally syndicated The Tom Joyner Morning Show, and also founder of Reach Media Inc., the Tom Joyner Foundation, and BlackAmericaWeb.com.
Texas Southern University is a public historically black university in Houston, Texas. The university is one of the largest and most comprehensive historically black college or universities in the United States with nearly 8,000 students enrolled and over 100 academic programs. The university is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and it is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), commonly known as Florida A&M, is a public historically black land-grant university in Tallahassee, Florida. Founded in 1887, It is the third largest historically black university in the United States by enrollment and the only public historically black university in Florida. It is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, as well as one of the state's land grant universities, and is accredited to award baccalaureate, master's and doctoral degrees by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Lincoln University (LU) is a public state-related historically black university (HBCU) near Oxford, Pennsylvania. Founded as the private Ashmun Institute in 1854, it has been a public institution since 1972 and is the second HBCU in the state, after Cheyney University of Pennsylvania. Lincoln is also recognized as the first college-degree granting HBCU in the country. Its main campus is located on 422 acres near the town of Oxford in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania. The university has a second location in the University City area of Philadelphia. Lincoln University provides undergraduate and graduate coursework to approximately 2,000 students. It is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
Joshua Isaac Smith is an American businessman and former chairperson of the Commission on Minority Business Development.
Savannah State University is a public historically black university in Savannah, Georgia. It is the oldest historically black public university in the state. The university is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
Molson Coors is a Canadian-American multinational drink and brewing company headquartered in Chicago, IL with main offices in Golden, Colorado, and Montreal, Quebec.
Charles de Ganahl Koch is an American billionaire businessman. As of February 2024, he was ranked as the 23rd richest man in the world on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with an estimated net worth of $64.9 billion. Koch has been co-owner, chairman, and chief executive officer of Koch Industries since 1967, while his late brother David Koch served as executive vice president. Charles and David each owned 42% of the conglomerate. The brothers inherited the business from their father, Fred C. Koch, then expanded the business. Koch Industries is the largest privately held company by revenue in the United States, according to Forbes.
Eric Herbert Molson is a Canadian billionaire businessman. He is the former Chairman of Molson Coors and former Chancellor of Concordia University. He is a member of the Molson family.
Jim Clifton is the chairman of Gallup, a global analytics and advice firm. Clifton served as the CEO of Gallup from 1988 until 2022, and is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller It's the Manager, the bestseller Born to Build, The Coming Jobs War, and writes The Chairman's Blog. He is the creator of the behavioral economic framework, “The Gallup Microeconomic Path,” a metric-based economic model that establishes the linkages among human nature in the workplace, customer engagement and business outcomes, which is used by over 500 companies worldwide. His father was psychologist, educator, and author Dr. Donald O. Clifton, who founded of Selection Research, Inc. (SRI). Under Jim's leadership, SRI acquired the Gallup Organization in 1988.
Johnny Clayton Taylor Jr. is an American lawyer, author, board member and public speaker who is the president and chief executive officer of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). He was previously president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), which represents the 47 publicly-supported historically Black colleges and universities in the United States. In February 2018, President Donald Trump appointed Taylor chair of the President's Advisory Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He is vice chair of the University of Miami, and trustee of Jobs for America’s Graduates. Taylor sits on the corporate boards of Guild Education, Internet Collaborative Information Management Systems (ICIMS), and XPO Logistics.
Dennis A. Muilenburg is an American engineer, business executive and a former president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Boeing, a multinational aerospace and defense company. He was CEO from 2015 to 2019, when he was fired in the aftermath of two crashes of the 737 MAX and its subsequent groundings.
Ronald Francis Mason Jr. is an American lawyer and university administrator, serving as the ninth president of the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). He took office in July 2015. This is Mason's third presidential appointment. He was previously chief executive officer at the Southern University System of Louisiana (2010-2015) and Jackson State University (2000-2010). Before his administration at Jackson State, Mason held several executive appointments over a 17-year tenure at Tulane University, including general counsel, vice president for Finance and Operations and senior vice president and general counsel.
Harry L. Williams is an American businessman who is president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), an organization representing the Black College Community. Williams oversees its 53 member-schools, which include publicly-supported Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs), as well as Historically Black Community Colleges (HBCCs). Williams has held positions within the University of North Carolina General Administration, Appalachian State University, North Carolina A&T State University, and Delaware State University.
Theodore Colbert III is a businessman, engineer, and the current Chief Executive Officer for Boeing Defense, Space & Security, a subdivision at The Boeing Company. He has served in the position since March 2022. Previously, he served as the CEO of Boeing Global Services, and prior to that, he served as the Chief Information Officer at The Boeing Company.
Revature is a technology talent development company headquartered in Reston, Virginia, USA. Its business model involves hiring recent U.S. college graduates, training them in high demand software skills, and deploying them to work on information technology projects for Revature’s corporate and government clients.
