Two initiatives designed to encourage philanthropy among nontraditional philanthropists awarded more than $19,000 in grants to local agencies yesterday.
The Black Philanthropy Initiative provided $17,500 in grants and the Youth Grantmakers in Action $1,535. Both programs are housed at the Winston-Salem Foundation.
The Black Philanthropy Initiative made its first grants last year, and the Youth Grantmakers awarded its first grants in 2006.
The amount of money awarded this year was about $9,000 less than last year, but that number is more a reflection of the types of grant requests than the state of the economy, said Cici Fulton, the foundation's director of marketing and communications.
This year, the Black Philanthropy Initiative focused on grants that support financial literacy, said Brenda Diggs, who served as the 2009 chairman of the initiative.
"Oftentimes in the African-American community, financial literacy and just plain old money management is something that is just not taught," she said.
Diggs, who spent 35 years as a senior vice president and manager of retail training at Wachovia Corp., said she has conducted many financial-planning workshops in the community and she knows that many people don't understand the power of such simple things as saving money.
"It's not in the numbers, in how much you have," she said. "It's how you manage."
Financial illiteracy is no respecter of race or social class, Diggs said, but blacks can be especially vulnerable.
"We don't necessarily pick up that skill because our parents and our forefathers were so busy just working to make ends meet that they didn't necessarily take the time to show us," she said.
The four grants from the Black Philanthropy Initiative are:
• $5,000 to Consumer Credit Counseling Services of Forsyth County to support "Money Skills for Life" program, which incorporates financial-literacy classes for people enrolled in the Upward Bound program at Winston-Salem State University.
• $5,000 to the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice to provide financial-literacy training for black men re-entering the community from prison.
• $5,000 to Family Services/Head Start for a series of financial-literacy workshops for 320 black single parents.
• $2,500 to Grace Presbyterian Church for the "Foundations of Wealth" program, which uses black financial professionals to conduct seminars in financial literacy for about 100 teenagers and adults.
The Youth Grantmakers, whose members range in age from 14 to 17, focused its efforts on projects that would benefit youth in the county, said Andrea Falden, a community-investment program officer at the Winston-Salem Foundation.
This year's awards are:
• $275 to the Cancer Awareness and Research for Everyone Club for its efforts to raise awareness about breast cancer and to encourage students to join a high-school team participating in the Race for the Cure.
• $300 to the cooking club at Forsyth Country Day School to prepare meals for families staying at the Ronald McDonald House.
• $800 to the student leadership council at Parkland High School to buy school supplies for a youth-led mentoring program for students at Konnoak Elementary School.
• $160 to Youth United to pay for the dedication ceremony for a youth-built Habitat for Humanity house.
mgiunca@wsjournal.com
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