Open Society Foundations and Bloomberg Philanthropies Noted In Report Released By Foundation Center: Quantifying Hope: Philanthropic Support for Black Men and Boys
U.S. foundation funding in support of programs and organizations working to improve the life outcomes of African-American males totaled $45.6 million in 2013 — down from $64.6 million in 2012 — but increased, to $61.4 million, in 2014, a report from the Campaign for Black Male Achievement (CBMA) and Foundation Center finds.
According to the 2017 edition of Quantifying Hope: Philanthropic Support for Black Men and Boys (36 pages, PDF), the fluctuations in funding explicitly designated to benefit African-American men and boys might be due, in part, to large grants awarded for targeted initiatives by the Open Society Foundations (OSF), Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) in 2012 and/or 2014. Support for boys and men of color as a broader population group — at least a portion of which likely benefited black men and boys — continued to grow steadily, from $42.5 million in 2012, to $50.9 million in 2013, to $62.7 million in 2014.
In terms of issue areas, the report found that education continued to receive the largest share of funding explicitly designated for black men and boys in 2013 and 2014 (56 percent of combined 2013-14 grant dollars), followed by human services (including youth development, 44 percent), and public safety (including legal services, 23 percent). And while program development was the most common support strategy (59 percent of grant dollars), 41 percent of the grant dollars tracked supported policy, advocacy, and systems reform — a significant share, given that only 13 percent of overall foundation grantmaking supported those strategies...