Natalie Coles will never forget receiving an unexpected phone call in 2020. On the line was Virginia-based Dominion Energy, offering to give money to Wilberforce University, the small historically Black college where she is in charge of fundraising.
The company’s $500,000 donation went in part toward laptops and hot spots for students when the pandemic shut down the college’s campus outside of Dayton, Ohio.
“It was like manna from heaven,” Coles said.
Historically Black colleges and universities, which had seen giving from foundations decline in recent decades, lately are benefiting from an increase in gifts, particularly from corporations and corporate foundations. Some have received a new look from companies amid the reckoning over racial injustice spurred by the killing of George Floyd. But the colleges also have been pitching themselves, emphasizing their ability to deliver returns on the investment in student mobility.
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