US companies, nudged by Black employees, have stepped up donations to HBCUs
Written by Black Hot Fire Network on June 4, 2023
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