Gates Commits $150 Million to Strengthen Education Equity; Nature Conservancy Gets $30 Million for Rivers Project

Here are notable new grant awards compiled by the Chronicle:

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

$100 million over five years to six grantees to expand access to education for students from marginalized communities at 250 historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, tribal colleges, and other institutions.

The recipients of this commitment are the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, Complete College America, Excelencia in Education, Growing Inland Achievement, and the United Negro College Fund’s Institute for Capacity Building.

Read more about this $100 million pledge in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

In addition, the foundation is giving $50 million to Partners in Health to start the Paul E. Farmer Scholarship Fund, which seeks to raise $200 million for students who attend the University of Global Health Equity, in Rwanda.

Schuler Education Foundation

$95 million in challenge grants to five liberal-arts colleges to increase the enrollment of students who are undocumented immigrants or from low-income families.

The foundation will award $20 million each to Barnard College, Centre College, College of the Holy Cross, and Trinity College, and $15 million to Scripps College. Each college must raise a matching amount for financial aid to receive the full pledge.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

$32 million to World Food Program USA for its global efforts to combat the food crisis in nine countries.

The grant will expand access to food and other critical supplies for 1.6 million people in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen.

Enterprise Rent-a-Car Foundation

$30 million commitment to the Nature Conservancy to continue its Routes and Roots: Enterprise Healthy Rivers Project, which aims to protect and restore rivers and other freshwater ecosystems around the world.

John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

$20 million to the University of Akron to turn its Polsky Building into an arts and academic facility open to the public in downtown Akron, Ohio. The grant will pay for technology upgrades and create space for entrepreneurs, collaboration between community groups, artistic performances, and educational programs.

The foundation is also giving $9 million over three years to strengthen support networks for local news and publishers of color. The recipients of this commitment are the Institute for Nonprofit News, Local Independent Online News Publishers, and the Center for Community Media at the City University of New York’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.

Google

$25 million commitment to AI for the Global Goals, a partnership with nonprofit groups and social enterprises that use artificial intelligence and other advanced technology to hasten progress on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.

These goals, which the United Nations announced in 2015, aim to enhance economic growth, equity, and environmental protection around the world before 2030.

Salesforce

$25 million commitment to five city school districts and six education groups across the United States to bolster the social and emotional well-being of students and teachers.

The public-school districts receiving funding are in Chicago, Indianapolis, New York, San Francisco, and Oakland, Calif. In addition, grants will support programs at Chiefs for Change, the Ed Trust, the Institute for Educational Leadership, New Leaders, the Partnership for LA Schools, and TNTP.

Gilead Foundation

$20 million to 13 grantees in the first round of grant making through its Creating Possible Fund, which supports nonprofit groups and schools that are developing a pipeline of Black health leaders.

The recipients in this round are Brown University’s Annenberg Institute for School Reform, Kingmakers of Oakland, KQED, Morehouse College’s Center for Excellence in Education, the Oakland Fund for Public Innovation, Fresh Lifelines for Youth/Peer Point, Pulse of Perseverance, Represent Justice, the Southern Poverty Law Center, St. John’s Community Health/Compton Unified School District, the Trevor Project, Xavier University of Louisiana, and Yellow.

Cisco

$5 million to the Black Economic Alliance Foundation to enhance its efforts to expand equitable access to entrepreneurship and develop Black business leaders at Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College.

The commitment includes $4 million for the Center for Black Entrepreneurship and $1 million for the BEA Entrepreneurs Fund.

Getty Foundation

$3.1 million to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund for Conserving Black Modernism, a program that aims to preserve historic modern architecture by Black architects and designers.

Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

$1.5 million to WaterAid to support U.S. and foreign policies that improve access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene services in health care facilities in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Uganda.

Molson Coors

$1.5 million through its Project Justice program to organizations that are dedicated to equity, empowerment, and justice in communities that are predominantly Black, Indigenous, and people of color.

Wyss Foundation

$1.3 million to the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization that promotes financial and economic justice and opportunity in the United States.

Send grant announcements to grants.editor@philanthropy.com.

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