Librarian Creates World Renowned Black History Collection

Avery Clayton sits in front of a portrait of his mother, Mayme Clayton

Photo Credit: Black America Web

Mayme Clayton was passionate about black history. She spent her career as a librarian at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles. In the late 1960's, her work was instrumental in the creation of the African-American Studies Center Library at UCLA. She collected a body of material that is now been formalized in a museum. The curators of the Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum of African American History & Culture say her collection will rival New York's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in size and significance.

According to an article on blackamericaweb.com, the collection that is currently being cataloged contains:

• the first book published in America by African-born Phillis Wheatley, "Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral." It is signed and dated 1773, when she was a slave in Boston.
  
• the largest black film collection in the world, with 1,700 titles dating back to 1916. It is housed at the UCLA School of Film and Television.
• 9,500 sound recordings. The recordings include the earliest from Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith
• 75,000 photographs and scores of movie posters, playbills, programs, documents and manuscripts

Mayme Clayton invested her time, talent, and financial resources to create and preserve a collection of material that benefits us all. The museum is working toward a 2011 opening. The first major exhibition of this material will be Oct. 24 to Jan. 4, in a joint effort with the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. Ms Clayton died in 2006 and her sons, Avery and Lloyd are cataloging her work and helping to establish the museum.

Special thanks to Dr. Harold Massey for sharing this information.

For more information:
Blackamericaweb.com: Mom's Legacy: World Renowned Black Collection
Press Release from the Huntington Library
Mayme A. Clayton Library & Cultural Center (A Division Of Western States Black Research & Education Center) Newsletter and Website

Tom Joyner Foundation Has Raised Over $55 Million for Students at HBCUs

Photo Credit: Urban Mecca

The "fly jock" is also a man with a big heart. In an article published in Black Collegian magazine in 2005, , the foundation had raised close to $30 million dollars with over 65 percent of the funds generated through individual contributions and all the proceeds directed to the students. "The money we raise goes to help the students," says Joyner. "We don't take out administrative costs." In addition to individual funders who support the organization, The Tom Joyner Foundation has a number of collaborations with a number of businesses that share Joyners vision. "To date, the Foundation has worked with nearly 100 HBCUs. For these schools, we have been able to donate money that keeps students at the schools and spur the schools' alumni to get more involved with this important effort."

Recently the foundation donated an additional $200,000 to Knoxville College, bringing total money given to the college over the life of the foundation to half a million dollars.

According to a press release earlier this year, the Tom Joyner Foundation has finalized an agreement to produce a book entitled "Tom Joyner Presents How To Prepare For College. " The book is scheduled to be released this fall.

The press release goes on to indicate that "since 1998 The Tom Joyner Foundation® has raised more than Fifty Five Million Dollars to help students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities stay in school. The Tom Joyner Foundation also hosts an annual cruise named the Fantastic Voyage which raises money for the (HBCUs)."

Giving Circles Are a Major Force in Philanthropy

Birmingham Change Fund
Birmingham, Alabama

HERITAGE QUILTERS
Warrenton, North Carolina

Photo Credits: Community Investment Network

According to a report issued by the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers, giving circles have become a major force in philanthropy, raising over $100 million. What are giving circles? They "involve a group of friends who pool their charitable donations and decide together how to use the money to benefit the causes they care most about."

Giving circles have traditionally been thought of as a philanthropic approach used mainly by women, but that is increasingly no longer the case.

For background on giving circles, including information on how to form one, see the Forum's information below.

Resources on Giving Circles:

Report: Giving Circles Are Here to Stay by the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers (the nation affiliate of the Ohio Grantmakers Forum).

More Giving Together: THE GROWTH AND IMPACT of GIVING CIRCLES and SHARED GIVING
A report researched and written by Jessica E. Bearman for the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers

The Joy of Philanthropy:
My Giving Circle Friends and I Find That You Don't Have to Be Oprah to Make a Difference (The author of the article joined a giving circle sponsored by the Washington Area Women's Foundation)

A Circle With a Deep Center:
Black Women Pool Resources in Grass-Roots Effort to Alleviate D.C.'s Social Ills

Community Investment Network
The Community Investment Network works with young adult African Americans in the American South to focus how they engage and give back to their communities. This work has yielded nine giving circles.

African American Womens Giving Circle: Founded in 2004, the African American Women’s Giving Circle (AAWGC) is a charitable fund established out of The Women’s Foundation. The circle includes 15-25 women who have each made a financial commitment of $2,000 or more over a two-year period and agreed to work together as part of a shared grantmaking and learning experience.

Cleveland School Teacher Donates $2 Million to Her Alma Mater

Here is another example of what can happen when motivation and proper financial planning combine to create a legacy to benefit others.

Baldwin Wallace graduate Laura Bickimer donated $2 million to Baldwin Wallace, even thought she never made more than $40,000 per year as a Cleveland school teacher, according to the Plain Dealer. The article does indicate that she received some inheritance to augment her own saving.

Birmingham Couple Pinches Pennies to Endow Scholarships and Make a Difference

Ron Howard and his wife Elizabeth have funded $20,000 scholarship endowments that support education students at the University of Alabama, Ron's alma mater.

They have also endowed a $10,000 scholarship fund at the University of Mississippi and Samford University, , the Howards are midway toward funding a $15,000 scholarship endowment where Elizabeth received her education degree and master's degree, respectively.

"I'm basically poor," he says, turning his empty pockets inside out. "I drive a 1987 Dodge Diplomat. We live in a three-bedroom split level. I don't buy a lot of clothes and stuff. I'd rather put my money in this. I want to make a difference."

To learn how this couple managed to accomplish so much on his $55,000 salary from Bell South and her salary as a teacher, read the article written by the Birmingham News in 2005.

Frugal Farmer Leaves Millions to Charity

According the the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Minnesota farmer Harvey Ordung left a significant part of his $9.3 million estate to charity. The largest gift was to Luverne Dollars for Scholars, a scholarship program in Luverne, Minnesota.

Community 101 Program Teaches Giving to Young People

Portland-based PGE Foundation has invested more that $1 million since 1997 in an innovated program that teaches students to be philanthropists.

"Based on Colorado's El Pomar Youth in Community Service model, the program turns kids into grantmakers by awarding each class up to $5,000 to run their own mini-charitable foundation. Each group surveys community needs, develops a mission statement, and researches local nonprofit agencies. Students then solicit grant requests and ultimately make tough decisions on who gets funded and by how much. The young philanthropists commit to performing four hours of community service a month and are encouraged to raise an additional $500 for their program, which is matched 1:1 by the sponsor."

Videos from the Council of Foundations

The Council of Foundations has a section of its website that has videos from a number of speakers involved in Philanthropy. They include Bill Clinton, Van Jones, Melinda Gates, and Ronn Richard of the Cleveland Foundation. Unfortunately, the site does not allow embedding or linking directly to its videos.

Earl Stafford of the Stafford Foundation Interviewed on CNN

This video is a brief interview with Earl Stafford about his foundation's efforts to enable those would otherwise never have had the opportunity to Washington D.C and join in the inauguration events for President Barrack Obama. Learn more by visiting the foundation's blog and website: thestaffordfoundation.org.

Thanks to Vivian Hairston for sharing this information.

African-American Lessons in Giving

This link provides some interesting statistics on African-American giving. Did you know that Blacks "give 25 percent more of their discretionary income to charity than do whites,"
according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy?

Jabari Asim, the author of this Washington Post Op-Ed, African-American Lessons in Giving, also talks about Thomas Cannon, man who rarely earned more than $30,000 but managed to
give away $150,000 over his lifetime.

Conventional wisdom is that you have to be wealthy, like Bill Gates, Michael Jackson, or Oprah Winfrey, in order to give. This is not true, as I hope will become apparent from the articles in this blog.

Any readers with other examples of people who have made significant contributions with "normal" incomes are encouraged to post information about these people in the comments section of this blog.