Black Excellence: charities building Black futures

UNCF (United Negro College Fund) raises money for 36 member private historically Black colleges and universities and awards more than 11,000 scholarships a year to help students pay for college.

The Thurgood Marshall College Fund supports students and schools across a network of 57 publicly supported HBCUs, community colleges, predominantly Black institutions, and medical and law schools through scholarships and career programs.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) is a civil rights law organization that uses litigation, advocacy, research, and public education to advance the rights of Black Americans in voting, education, criminal justice and economic justice.

The Equal Justice Initiative is a Montgomery, Alabama nonprofit that provides legal representation to people illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in prisons, and runs museums and memorials documenting the history of racial injustice in America.

Black Girls Code is an Oakland-based nonprofit that teaches coding and technology skills, including AI and game design, to Black girls ages 7–18 through workshops, summer camps, and free online video lessons.

/dev/color is a nonprofit career accelerator for Black software engineers, technologists, and executives, running peer-mentorship squads, an executive accelerator, and a professional community to help members advance into senior and leadership roles.

Black Farmer Fund is a New York-based nonprofit that invests in Black-owned farms and food businesses across nine Northeast states through low-interest community notes, gifts, and technical support, to build community wealth in the Black food system.

BEAM (Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective) is a national nonprofit that trains, funds, and connects therapists, wellness practitioners, and community leaders to expand community-based mental health care and healing for Black communities.

Covers the cost of therapy for Black women and nonbinary people nationwide through its Therapy Fund, which pays for 4–12 sessions per recipient, and has offered professional development for therapists since 2021.