Giving Compass' Take:

• Sheba Rogers discusses what is needed to build communities where Black men and boys can thrive according to the Campaign for Black Male Achievement.

• How can funders best help to complete the work outlined here? What do Black men and boys in your community need? 

• Learn more about investing in Black men and boys. 

To build beloved communities across America where black men and boys are healthy, thriving, and able to achieve their fullest potential — that is the Campaign for Black Male Achievement's (CBMA) core mission and rallying cry.

CBMA's work is driven by the unwavering belief that black men and boys are assets to our communities and our country, that they possess untapped potential and brilliance, and that they thrive when given opportunities to succeed. We cannot truly prosper as a nation when any group is left behind and forced to exist on the fringes of society.

To chart and track the progress happening in these cities, in 2015 CBMA developed the Black Male Achievement (BMA) City Index, which scores cities based on their level of engagement with and investment in black men and boys. In conjunction with the new index, we released Promise of Place, a first-of-its-kind report series that assessed commitments and targeted initiatives across fifty cities focused on supporting black men and boys.

A few weeks ago, we released a follow-up report, Promise of Place: Building Beloved Communities for Black Men and Boys, that explores whether those cities are keeping their promises. Encouragingly, we have found that most cities have in fact increased their investments and actions in support of black men and boys.

Despite this progress, however, we still see a continued need for greater investment in black male achievement. As noted in the report, education is just one area of need: 25 percent of African-American children do not graduate from high school on time, compared with the national average of 17 percent. Similarly, the high school graduation rate for black males is 59 percent, compared with 65 percent for Latino males and 80 percent for white males.

Read the full article about building communities where young Black men and boys thrive by Sheba Rogers at Philantopic by Candid.