Black Philanthropy Resources

WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM/swiss-image.ch/Photo Jolanda Flubacher

Robert F. Smith’s recent pledge to pay off the student loans of the class of 2019 at Morehouse College is part of a long history of black philanthropy. If you want to learn more about black philanthropy here are some resources that I use in my research and my course “Class in the Black Community:”

• A Growing Tradition?: Examining the African American Family Foundation / Marybeth Gasman

• A Hand Up: Black Philanthropy and Self-Help in America / Emmett D. Carson

• “The Ambivalent Gift: The Diverse Giving Strategies of Black Philanthropists” / Jane Jones

• “Black Philanthropy’s Past, Present, and Future” / Emmett D. Carson

• Diversity and Philanthropy at African American Museums / Patricia A. Banks

• Giving Black in Los Angeles / Ange-Marie Hancock

• “High Culture, Black Culture: Strategic Assimilation and Cultural Steering in Museum Philanthropy” / Patricia A. Banks

• “Money, Museums, and Memory: Cultural Patronage by Black Voluntary Associations” / Patricia A. Banks

• “Promoting Diversity in Contemporary Black Philanthropy: Toward a New Conceptual Model” / Jacqueline Copeland-Carson

• The Racial Wealth Gap: Origins and Implications for Philanthropy in the African American Community / Dalton Conley

A Legacy of Collecting: The National Museum of African American History and Culture

Kevin E. Cole, Increase Risk with Emotional Faith (2008) / © Patricia. A. Banks

Donated to the National Museum of African American History and Culture by Greg and Yolanda Head.

by Patricia A. Banks

I recently participated in a Smith College teaching and learning event "American History as African American History: Visiting the National Museum of African American History and Culture." Here is a post that I wrote about the visit for a reflection and resource blog about the visit:

When I walked into the visual art gallery at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) my attention was immediately taken to Kevin E. Cole’s work Increase Risk with Emotional Faith (2008). The sculpture references neckties used to lynch African American men and is composed of highly patterned and brightly colored strips of wood that twist and turn under and over one another. It is not only the formal properties and conceptual content of this work that caught my eye, but also its resonance with my scholarship and teaching. To complete research for my book Represent: Art and Identity Among the Black Upper-Middle Class (Routledge 2010) I conducted ethnographic research on art collecting by African Americans in New York, NY and Atlanta, GA. While New York is widely recognized for art collecting, it is less well known that Atlanta has a rich legacy of collecting among African Americans. This legacy is partly rooted in the institutional base for African American art that is provided by museums at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU's) in the city such as Spelman College and Clark Atlanta University. Cole lives and works in Atlanta and several collectors in the city own his sculptures and display them in their homes. The work that is on display in NMAAHC was donated by Greg and Yolanda Head who are based in Atlanta. The couple are among a critical mass of African American art collectors in the city who center work by artists from the African Diaspora in their patronage.

Much attention has been paid to the fact that the collection of historical artifacts at NMAAHC was partly brought together by reaching out to the public through its Save Our African American Treasures program. However, Cole’s sculpture donated by the Head family throws light on how public collections rely on private collectors. In this case, NMAAHC's collection grows out of a long legacy of private collections focused on work by African American artists.

For professors and other instructors who are interested in bringing insights on the history of collecting into the classroom NMAAHC provides a useful case for examining the intersections of identity and collecting. As I work on my new monograph on philanthropy at African American museums, I feel as if I have come full circle.

Major MLK Memorial Donors Gave Millions to African American Museum

Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial / © Patricia A. Banks

“Half of the major donors to the MLK Memorial also gave million dollar donations to the NMAAHC.”

by Patricia A. Banks

On October 16, 2011, the life and memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. was honored at the dedication ceremony for his memorial on the National Mall.  Five years later, on September 24, 2016, King’s legacy and the legacies of other pioneering African Americans were celebrated at the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). The NMAAHC and the MLK Memorial are not only linked by standing as “firsts” on the National Mall—the NMAAHC is the first African American museum on this tract of land and the MLK Memorial is the first monument honoring an African American there—but also by the philanthropy that helped to pay for them. In my research on black cultural philanthropy, I find that this museum and monument are connected through common patrons: Half of the major donors to the MLK Memorial also gave million dollar donations to the NMAAHC (1).

When the General Motors Corporation donated $750,000 to support the MLK Memorial in June 2000 they became the first major sponsor of the campaign. Over the years the automaker continued to provide support—for example, they made two separate $1,000,000 gifts in 2002. By the end of the campaign GM had given over $10,000,000 to the cause.  In 2013, two years after the MLK Memorial opened, the company made a half-million dollar donation to the NMAAHC that was part of a bigger seven-figure gift.

The NMAAHC’s major gifts campaign was kicked off by a million dollar pledge by Aflac in 2002. Over the course of fulfilling this pledge from 2003 to 2006, the company also gave a one million dollar donation to the MLK Memorial in 2005.

Inscription on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial 

While both philanthropic campaigns overlapped, the MLK Memorial donors who supported the NMAAHC generally gave to the King campaign first.  Along with GM, other corporations such as The Walt Disney Company, Prudential, and Hyundai followed their million dollar donations to the MLK Memorial with million dollar gifts to the NMAAHC. The gifts of individual donors such as financier Robert F. Smith and filmmaker George Lucas (whose NMAAHC gift was also from his spouse investment manager Mellody Hobson) followed this pattern as well.

Not only did half of the major MLK Memorial donors give million dollar gifts to the NMAAHC, but at least close to 15% of them have also given million dollar donations to other African American museums and related organizations. In particular, there is overlap between major donors for campaigns to build the MLK Memorial, the NMAAHC, and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. Corporations such as Hyundai, Toyota, and PepsiCo gave million dollar donations to all three fundraising efforts. Another case of million dollar gifts to the MLK Memorial, the NMAAHC, and another museum focused on black culture is philanthropy by Lucas and Hobson. In 2005 Lucas' donation to the MLK Memorial was announced. In 2013 Lucas and Hobson gave a $1,000,000 gift to the NMAAHC, and the next year in 2014 the couple donated $1,000,000 to the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.  

Identifying the donor links between fundraising campaigns at the MLK Memorial and the NMAAHC (along with other African American museums and related insitutions) offers a richer understanding of these cultural projects.  Studying high-impact patrons of black culture (e.g. donors who provide major support for the institutionalization of black culture across multiple sites) is not only important for documenting the history of black monuments and museums, but also for understanding the factors that drive black cultural philanthropy. 

National Museum of African American History & Culture / © Patricia A. Banks

Donors Who Gave Million Dollar Gifts to the MLK Memorial and the NMAAHC (2)

AARP
Aetna
Aflac
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
BET Networks/Viacom
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation*
Coca-Cola Foundation*
Exelon Foundation
FedEx*
The Ford Motor Company Fund*
GE*
General Motors
George Lucas*
Hyundai Motor Company
JP Morgan Chase
Macfarlane Partners/Victor and Thaderine MacFarlane and Family
McDonald’s Corporation
MetLife Foundation
Michael and Susan Dell
Nationwide Foundation
PepsiCo Foundation*
Prudential Financial Inc.
Target
The Boeing Company*
The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation
The Walt Disney Company
TOYOTA*
United Health Group
Verizon Foundation
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Walmart
Zoelimax Foundation/Robert Frederick Smith

 (1) This is based on analysis of the million dollar donors for both building campaigns who are memorialized on donor walls at their respective sites. Documents such as 990-PF’s, annual reports, and press releases were also consulted.

(2) See footnote 1. Also, donors designated by an asterisk have not only given million dollar donations to the MLK Memorial and NMAAHC, but also to another African American museum. In cases where the donor name is followed by a forward slash, the name of the associated donor that appears on the NMAAHC donor wall is listed. 

High-Impact Black Cultural Philanthropy: Million Dollar Gifts to Multiple African American Museums

National Museum of African American History and Culture / Alan Karchmer / NMAAHC

“More specifically, I find that over 10% of the donors that have made million dollar gifts to the NMAAHC have also made gifts of one million dollars or more to other African American cultural institutions across the United States.”

by Patricia A. Banks

The dozens of million dollar donations to the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) have been widely reported. However, in my research on philanthropy and African American museums, I find that these gifts are part of a broader pattern of large gifts made to other African American museums and related institutions across the United States. More specifically, I find that over 10% of the donors that have made million dollar gifts to the NMAAHC have also made gifts of one million dollars or more to other African American cultural institutions across the United States (1). I describe these donors as high-impact patrons of black culture (and their gifts as a form of high-impact black cultural philanthropy) because they provide major support for the institutionalization of black culture across multiple sites. These gifts reveal that neither high-level philanthropy among black donors to African American museums nor a cluster of million dollar gifts to an African American museum are isolated phenomena. (To do a search for museums that have received a million dollar donation from a major NMAAHC donor see the African American Museums Database (AAMD) and read this).

This is not the first time in the history of philanthropy that an African American museum has attracted a long list of million dollar donors.  Over a decade earlier when the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (Cincinnati, Ohio) opened in 2004, over three dozen million dollar gifts were given to support the institution. Several of those donors, such as The Boeing Company and Coca-Cola, would go on to also give million dollar donations to the NMAAHC. Also among those donors were wealthy African Americans including media mogul Oprah Winfrey and Black Entertainment Television (BET) founder Robert L. Johnson. The Links Incorporated, a black women’s social and civic organization, also made million dollar gifts to both museums.

Among other high-impact patrons of black culture are The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Reginald F. Lewis Foundation.  Founded by tech entrepreneurs Bill and Melinda Gates, The Gates Foundation is based in Seattle, Washington. Like other major cities, Seattle has a local African American museum, the Northwest African American museum. While The Gates Foundation gave a $10,000,000 gift to the NMAAHC in October 2009, that year in April they also gave a $1,000,000 million dollar gift to the Northwest African American Museum (NAAM). Three years later in 2014 they gave another grant of over $1,000,000 to NAAM and over the course of 2009 to 2016 have made several other smaller gifts to the organization.

The Reginald F. Lewis Foundation also provides an example of high-impact black cultural philanthropy. Lewis, who passed away in 1993, was a wealthy African American lawyer and businessman. His foundation was established in 1987. During his life the Lewis Foundation made million dollar donations to institutions such as Harvard University and Howard University. Honoring a wish to support an African American museum that Lewis made before his death the Foundation pledged $5,000,000 to the Maryland African American Museum Corporation in 2002. After the donation the Baltimore museum was renamed The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture. In the ensuing years, the Foundation committed to a million dollar donation to the NMAAHC and has continued to support the Lewis Museum. For example, in the fiscal year ending in June 2015 a $250,000 contribution to the NMAAHC and a $50,000 donation to the Lewis Museum were granted by the Lewis Foundation.

Grafton Tyler Brown, View of Lake Okanagan, British Columbia, 1882, Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Curtis E. Ransom in memory of Julia Turner Ransom

Letterhead featuring Brown's work was donated to the NMAAHC by Wells Fargo.

Notable examples of high-impact black cultural philanthropy in the banking sector are Wells Fargo and Bank of America. Each bank gave million dollar donations to the NMAAHC and the recently opened National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. Along with funds, Wells Fargo and Bank of America donated work from their corporate collections to the NMAAHC. 

Put in this broader context philanthropy at the NMAAHC is perhaps most notable not for establishing wholesale new patterns of philanthropy but rather for accelerating existing patterns. For example, from the AAMD we can see that there is an established pattern of major corporate philanthropy in the African American museum sector and a history of large gifts by blacks to these institutions. However, in my ongoing research, the NMAAHC stands out for the number of these types of gifts. It appears that the NMAAHC has been able to galvanize high-level supporters at an unprecedented level.

Examining these large gifts to African American museums casts light on how the NMAAHC is embedded within a broader network and history of black cultural philanthropy. Recognizing this network and historical precedent are important because they arguably created a context that made the especially high philanthropic engagement at the NMAAHC possible. How the embeddedness of the NMAAHC in this culture of philanthropy will play out in the future is an important question. While the NMAAHC is the largest African American museum it is just one among at least 300 other black-focused cultural institutions across the United States. A robust African American museums field will require deepening understanding of the scope and motivations underlying high-impact African American cultural philanthropy.

(1) As part of my research on philanthropy and African American museums I have collected data on
selected public gifts to these institutions. This includes gifts reported in documents such as museum annual reports and 990-PF Tax Forms. This post refers to million dollar NMAAHC donors as of 9/13/16.

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