Black Philanthropy Initiative Announces Impact Grant Recipients during Black History Month

The Black Philanthropy Initiative (BPI) announces $10,500 in grants awarded through its Impact Grants program. BPI’s Impact Grants are investments in programs, projects, and initiatives supporting Forsyth County’s Black communities, and the grantees are local groups and organizations with annual budgets under $150,000.

During its February 2022 grant cycle, BPI requested video proposals from organizations/groups working in one of the four critical areas in its Rethinking Philanthropy report (education, jobs and wages, poverty, and civic engagement,) or on criminal justice reform or racial justice efforts. BPI prioritized Black-led organizations and programs working within predominately Black neighborhoods (including 27101, 27105, and 27107).

Grants were awarded to:  

• Delta Arts Center: $1,000 to provide a free summer music camp for youth in east Winston-Salem

• Dream The Impossible: $1,000 to provide mental health education and programming to raise suicide awareness among youth
• Dreamers Student Athlete Counseling: $500 to provide college tours to approximately 20 student athletes
• Hope to Thrive: $1,000 to provide four weeks of coaching on wealth building, health awareness and entrepreneurship
• Journee Bees Village: $1,000 to offer wellness workshops for families and youth involved with the criminal justice system
• My FACE, Inc. (Males and Females Acting in Empowerment): $1,000 to provide wholistic mentoring and support to low-income female heads of household

• PUCC: Konnoak Community Freedom School: $1,000 for a field trip and enrichment experience for middle school scholars participating in the Freedom School summer program
• Read, Empower, and Distinguish (READ): $1,000 to train and equip parents with tools and resources to further support their children's literacy
• TCJ Motivations, Inc.: $1,000 to provide programming to promote academic excellence among male high school students
• Urban Steam Foundation: $1,000 to expand curriculum and train teachers for a weekly afterschool and summer STEAM program
• Virtual & in-Person (ViP) Tutoring and Peer Guides Program: $1,000 to support a youth-led tutoring and mentoring program

BPI’s grants are made possible by the collective pooling of resources from the generous people of Forsyth County to invest in Black-led organizations and support the local Black community. In 2021, BPI provided over $220,000 in grants to local programs and initiatives.

Currently, BPI offers three grant programs: Impact Grants, Building an Inclusive Economy, and Advancing Equity in Education Grants (both are focus areas of The Winston-Salem Foundation). To learn more about these grant programs and find ways to contribute to this work, please visit bpiws.org.

The Black Philanthropy Initiative (BPI) is a 100% Black-led initiative of The Winston-Salem Foundation launched in 2007 that explicitly, not exclusively, focuses its grantmaking and programming on needs identified in the local Black community. Over the past 15 years, BPI has provided over $528,000 in program grants to local nonprofits.