COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Central Carolina Community Foundation, the Midlands' local center for philanthropy, has awarded $70,000 in unrestricted grants to seven Black-led and Black-benefitting nonprofits in the Midlands.
It's all a part of their new general operating support grant initiative, which they hope will help remove some of the financial barriers these nonprofits face and help build a more equitable community.
"What we offered were multi-year general operating support grants that nonprofits can use for whatever they think it's best to be able to sustain their organizations and to grow the organization and to do more good, " said Erin Johnson, Vice President of Community Investment of the Community Foundation. "It's 10,000 a year, for up to three years."
The seven grantees are Cecil Williams Museum, Communities in Schools of the Midlands, Killingsworth, Power in Changing: The Diaper Bank of the Midlands, The Hive Community Circle, The Luminal Theater, and Webgrylz Code.
Following the death of George Floyd in 2020, the organization committed to working with others to build a more even-handed community for everyone. The General Operating Support grant initiative is one of the many ways the Foundation has worked to fulfill that commitment over the past year.
"We are a community foundation for all," Johnson said. "We realized we had to be a voice for all in the community, and do some real internal work to see what our role was and to help make this a more livable, equitable, and just community."
Central Carolina Community Foundation is one of the first in the nation to explore unrestricted general operating support grants specifically for black-led and black-benefitting nonprofit organizations.
The organization has also been working on other equity initiatives for more than a decade.