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Posts tagged as “Student Freedom Initiative”

Robert F. Smith to Donate $50 Million to Support STEM Students at HBCUs Via the Student Freedom Initiative

Robert F. Smith to Donate $50 Million to Support STEM Students at HBCUs Via the Student Freedom Initiative

By goodblacknews on October 22, 2020

The Student Freedom Initiative announced today a $50 million personal gift from Robert F. Smith, philanthropist and Founder, Chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners. This gift matches the initial funding of $50 Million provided by the Fund II Foundation, announced in June 2020.

Student Freedom Initiative is a public charity whose mission is to serve as a catalyst for freedom in professional and life choices for students attending Minority Serving Institutions.

The Initiative will offer a student and family centric income-contingent payment alternative to the crushing burden of high cost, fixed payment debt in the context of our commitment to a program that provides holistic support to students and capacity building support for participating institutions. Equally important, the Initiative offers paid internships in a student’s area of study, tutoring/mentorships, and targeted HBCU capacity building.

“Each year, thousands of black graduates from HBCUs across America enter the workforce with a crushing debt burden that stunts future decisions and prevents opportunities and choices,” said Robert F. Smith, who is also the Board Chair of the Student Freedom Initiative.

“A college education should empower and prepare our next generation for a limitless future. The Student Freedom Initiative is a culmination of work that followed my gift to the Morehouse College Class of 2019. The $1.6 trillion student debt crisis in our country is a human rights crisis. The Initiative is purposefully built to redress historic economic and social inequities and to offer a sustainable, scalable platform to invest in the education of future Black leaders. I urge others to join this important cause so that together we can liberate the human spirit.”

With 65% of Black wealth consumed by the intolerable burden of student debt, the Initiative was initially established to create onramps to jobs of the 21st century. Following Smith’s historic gift to eliminate the student debt of all 2019 Morehouse College graduates and their parents, the team identified the systemic problems with the current student loan structure.

Netflix Moves $100 Million to Black-Led Banks to Help Build Economic Opportunity in Black Communities

Netflix Moves $100 Million to Black-Led Banks to Help Build Economic Opportunity in Black Communities

By goodblacknews on June 30, 2020

Netflix announced today it is shifting $100 million of its cash to financial institutions that serve the Black community to draw attention to the racial wealth gap in America.

The streaming giant has $5.1 billion in cash assets, and 2% of that will be moved to Black-led banks.

In its public statement, the company said it will first inject $25 million into a fund managed by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a nonprofit that develops underinvested communities. Another $10 million will go to Hope Credit Union, which provides capital for the nation’s most impoverished regions in the Deep South.

To quote from Netflix’s statement:

At Netflix, we know great stories can create empathy and understanding. Stories like Ava DuVernay’s 13TH and Explained’s Racial Wealth Gap show how systemic racism in America has sustained a centuries-long financial gap between Black and White families. As part of our commitment to racial equity, we are turning understanding into action. Going forward, Netflix is going to allocate two percent of our cash holdings – initially up to $100 million – into financial institutions and organizations that directly support Black communities in the U.S.

According to the FDIC, banks that are Black-owned or led represent a mere one percent of America’s commercial banking assets. This is one factor contributing to 19 percent of Black families having either negative wealth or no assets at all – more than double the rate of White households – according to the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Black banks have been fighting to better their communities for decades but they’re disadvantaged by their lack of access to capital. The major banks, where big multinational companies including ours keep most of their money, are also focusing more on improving equity, but not at the grassroots level these Black-led institutions can and do. So we wanted to redirect some of our cash specifically toward these communities, and hope to inspire other large companies to do the same with their cash deposits.

We plan to redirect even more of our cash to Black-led and focused institutions as we grow, and we hope others will do the same. For example, if every company in the S&P 500 allocated a modest amount of their cash holdings into efforts like the Black Economic Development Initiative, each one percent of their cash would represent $20-$30 billion of new capital. And that would help build stronger communities, offering more Black families pathways to prosperity and a more equitable future.

Aaron Mitchell, Director, Talent Acquisition

Shannon Alwyn, Director, Treasury

The news was welcomed by billionaire Robert F. Smith, who made headlines last year when he offered to pay off the debts of Morehouse College‘s graduating class. He recently expanded on that pledge by creating the Student Freedom Initiative to help students at HBCUs get affordable, low-interest loans for to fund higher learning.

“This is how we turn outrage into action,” Smith tweeted Tuesday. “$100m into Black-owned banks is a giant step forward. If major U.S. companies invest 2% of profits in left-behind communities, we can close the racial wealth gap in 10 years.”

Recently, Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings and his wife Patty Quillin personally pledged to donate $120 Million to HBCUs.

Billionaire Robert F. Smith Launches Student Freedom Initiative to Ease Student Debt at Historically Black Colleges

Billionaire Robert F. Smith Launches Student Freedom Initiative to Ease Student Debt at Historically Black Colleges

By goodblacknews on June 24, 2020

Robert F. Smith—the billionaire who pledged during a commencement speech last year to pay off the student debt of the Morehouse College class of 2019—is, according to time.com, launching a new initiative to help ease the burden of student loans at all HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities).

The Student Freedom Initiative, a nonprofit organization, will launch in 2021 at up to 11 HBCUS and will offer juniors and seniors who are science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors a flexible, lower-risk alternative to high-interest private student loans.

The list of HBCUs participating in the initial rollout has not been finalized. SFI will target the disproportionate loan burden on Black students while creating more choices for students whose career options or further educational opportunities might be limited by heavy student debt.

The aims of the Initiative is to help 5,000 new students each year via a $50 million grant from Fund II Foundation, a charitable organization of which Smith is founding director and president.

Fund II has set a goal of raising at least $500 million by October to make the program “self-sustaining” through investments and graduates’ income-based repayments. Fund II will partner with Michael Lomax, CEO of the United Negro College Fund; Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the Hutchins Center for African and African-American Research at Harvard; the Jain Family Institute and the Education Finance Institute.

To quote from Time:

“You think about these students graduating and then plowing so much of their wealth opportunity into supporting this student debt, that’s a travesty in and of itself,” Smith, chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, said Tuesday during a TIME100 Talks discussion with Editor-in-Chief Edward Felsenthal.

[To see Robert Smith speak on the need for this initiative, watch here]

Smith—the wealthiest Black man in the United States, according to Forbes—donated $34 million last year that covered the student debt of about 400 Morehouse graduates, including the educational debt incurred by their families. He says his new initiative is an effort to create a more sustainable model for thousands more students.

“I think it’s important that we do these things at scale and en masse because that’s how you lift up entire communities,” he says. “Of course, we all like the great one story, but I want thousands of these stories. And I want thousands of Robert Smiths out there who are actually looking to do some things in fields that are exciting to them and are giving back.”

Read more: https://time.com/5857186/robert-f-smith-historically-black-colleges/