In May 2021, Howard University, one of the United States’ leading historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), rolled out a major fundraising effort for a new facility and endowment for its College of Fine Arts. The announcement made headlines, not least because the college will be named in honor of the late actor and Howard  alumnus Chadwick Boseman. But read between the lines and you’ll find a story that matters more to social change than an endowment with a famous name.

Philanthropists endow institutions—universities, hospitals, museums—all the time. Howard itself has an endowment that’s more than double that of the next two most richly endowed HBCUs, Spelman College and Hampton University. However, a vast chasm separates the wealth of these highly regarded Black-led institutions and their non-Black counterparts. Howard’s endowment of $712 million is barely more than a rounding error compared with Harvard University’s $41 billion. Taken together, the wealth amassed by the 10 most richly endowed US universities is nearly 95 times larger than the total wealth of all 107 HBCU endowments combined, we found through our analysis of data from the National Association of College and University Business Officers and U.S. News & World Report.

Read the full article about Black non-profits by William Foster and  Darren Isom at Stanford Social Innovation Review.