Entrepreneurial Appetite
Entrepreneurial Appetite
Empowering Black Philanthropy: Ebonie Johnson Cooper's Journey from HBCU to Advocacy
Embark on an inspiring journey with the dynamic Ebonie Johnson Cooper, a true Aggie icon and a visionary in philanthropy and nonprofit education. Our latest episode captures her profound experiences from student life at A&T to her influential work on the Obama campaign and the creation of Young Black and Giving Back. Ebonie's story is a beacon of dedication, showcasing how one's collegiate roots can germinate into a career that redefines the landscape of Black philanthropy and leadership.
This episode is a must-listen for those curious about Ebonie's innovative approach to intergenerational leadership in black organizations. Imagine the vibrancy and strength of nonprofits that mirror the communities they serve, with board members from all walks of life bringing their unique perspectives to the table. Ebonie touches on the necessity for these organizations to authentically represent their black community, ensuring at least 50% black staff and board members, while still valuing the richness of diverse voices. The discussion sparks a deeper understanding of the power of age diversity, mentorship, and the critical role of an inclusive narrative within philanthropy.
As the conversation progresses, we unwrap the layers of community impact through the lens of audiobooks and storytelling. Ebonie's profound insights into the role of literature in shaping entrepreneurial and social endeavors are both refreshing and enlightening. Join us in celebrating the successful strides made by Young Black and Giving Back, diving into their strategic use of board matrices, and the heartwarming tales of how giving circles and audio narratives are forging tighter bonds within our communities. Don't miss this thought-provoking exploration that intertwines the threads of entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and community service.
What's up everybody, welcome to another episode of Entrepreneurial Appetite, a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting black businesses. And today we have Ebonie Johnson Cooper, who is, most importantly to me, a fellow Aggie, and she's part of our, of our very intentional efforts to highlight black folks who are doing good work as entrepreneurs and founders, who are graduates or are somehow affiliated with historically black colleges and universities. And so Ebonie is the faculty director of nonprofit executive education and training and an associate clinical professor at the University of Maryland College Park, and she's the founder and executive director of Young Black and Giving Back. And so, Ebonie, thank you for being here. And, as we get started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your HBCU journey, your philanthropic journey, your journey as the founder of Young Black and Giving Back? Aggie Pride.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Yes, Aggie Pride. Wow, that's such a big question, I don't know. I think about my life in sort of pieces, so I guess I'll start with the with the A&T connection, because that's that's our connection. So I am second generation Aggie. My mom went to A&T, which is one of the reasons why I was like I'm not going there but.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:I went on a college tour my junior year-ish, and it was our. It was our tour guide very handsome tour guide, by the way. I was like, oh yeah, when? All the black colleges. So if I'm transparent, I mean, hey, listen. But then I got there and I was like there's something about this place, right.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:I went on to Hampton, we're going to Spelman, we got all these schools and I didn't feel the same way. And so going A&T was absolutely defining in my leadership journey and I think in many ways just defining of my identity and who I am. By far, going to an HBCU impacted how I carried myself public speaking, how to show up, how not to show up expectations and what would be expected of you in the world. I'm from the School of Business, so you know there was a certain expectation there. You know I pledged Delta when I was at A&T and so I was really really heavy in student government. I was Miss Freshman, then I was a sophomore class vice president I was always refreshing the sophomore than junior class vice president and then I was a senior, so then I was really active in Delta. I'm sure I'm conflating some of this, but either way, I was really active in student government, which is really part of my growth as a leader, right and unbeknownst to me. That would play out in my professional career and how I saw myself in the world, what I was capable of or not. And then, as I one time matriculated from A&T and got into the real world, blessed to work for a fellow HBCU alum, also someone who's Greek his wife and he are just close to me today my kids, my kids, got parents and so you know the HBCU connection is definitely something that carried me through. It's been a through line in my life and the idea of giving and serving definitely started at A&T. But because I was continuously saw those through lines and other people in my life, it became clear and clear right.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:So once I finished at A&T, I went on to work in corporate America for some time and then, in the fall of 2008, I went to help this unknown man with a really funny name become president and I left my corporate career, went out to Ohio to help then Senator Obama become president Obama and that was really that was a pivotal moment in my career because I was over corporate. I worked for a really big company, viacom. Right, I worked for MBT International, so a bit of a different experience. However, you know, I was tired of like the manager life and the celebrity life and just feeling as if my life wasn't really my career, wasn't really doing any good. It was fun, right, Something fun to do in your 20s.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:But I wanted to do something else and so all I knew was hey, I want to go work for nonprofits. And so that's what I did. After the campaign, after President Obama was elected, I did do some freelancing, but I ended up starting to work for and with various nonprofit organizations back in Brooklyn I'm from New York and so smaller organizations, but still impactful and kind of helping me figure out, do I?
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:want to do marketing for these organizations. How does that fit into nonprofits? And at the same time, I was realizing or started to realize again where this leadership piece comes in that a number of my friends were also in leadership, right. Largely, I was on the junior board of a really big nonprofit in New York and we did a lot of service work throughout various boroughs and I, while I was one of two black women on the board, I was always able to corral my friends to come out and support at our gala, come out and volunteer, come out and do you know, work in the community. And as I looked around, I wasn't seeing enough of us represented right. By default, of course, my community looks like me, but by default for those organizations they look like them. Right, and we're often the beneficiaries of all the work, right, whether we were going to pay in school, we were cleaning up a neighborhood, we were beneficiaries, not the benefactors, and so, again, that became clear. But I wanted the narrative to be that my peers also do this work. So that's eventually how my organization, which was Friends of Empany and Startup just as a LLC business, pulling together my friends and the couple that spoke about a few moments ago they had the loss of a child, and so that was really my first large philanthropic effort to fundraise for the foundation they started for their daughter who died. And so I was like, hey, I can get some friends together, we can have this event at Be Smiths, which was a restaurant in New York, and that's what we did. It was my first fundraiser, if you will, getting partners with the restaurant, getting folks to come out. And so that's what started Friends of Empany, right. I was like, hey, bill and Melinda can have friends, so can I. And so that's really where and how it started, sort of having those sort of full circle moments.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Now I was back in the city working in nonprofit, serving on boards, just come off of this campaign and just trying to figure it out. And so the Monica Friends of Empany followed me right. I'm like my friends serve on boards or wanna serve on boards. I just did this training through the United Way. They should do it too. How can I open up opportunities? How can I feature other fellow young people at the time we were that early 20? So how can I feature my friends, right, who are also serving on boards and who are also volunteering and donating and all of those things.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:So I got to this place, where I then was doing another shift and thinking about how I could turn what I learned into a career, and so I found myself ended up going back to school, and while I was in school I began to think about how could I expand Friends of Empany, how could I think of it differently Again, thinking about the same group of persons. And that's when I did my first research project. That was my thesis when I was at NYU, was in their graduate PR and Corporate Communications Master's program, and I looked at Black Millennial Giving and what that looked like for the next generation of givers. What makes us different? So fewer calls. I looked around right, I'm one of one, one of two, and there was a research paper that came out that talked about giving among millennials. It's a term that I have a love relationship now with.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Yeah, and it was the people who were featured in this report again didn't represent us. So I said, okay, I want to study us, I want to know what it is. And so out of that research I learned a lot of what I could guess. But it confirmed that we care about education, we care about mentoring, we care about youth, right. Those are the top three areas we care about.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Many of us learned about giving through our church experiences, right? So religion has a lot to do with our giving, and at the time, those who were surveyed had given at least $100 to an organization. So those key findings, if you will, my master's research, was pretty novel at the time because both Millennial and Black put in those words together and philanthropy was kind of like what? And so that's when I started thinking about how can I take this and do more with it? And so in 2014, we shifted from just sort of a friends of Ebonie sharing space to more of formal Young Black and Giving Back Institute, where we feature curriculum for others to be able to come and learn. So we did board trainings and fundraising trainings, and so here we are almost 10 years later into what we will. You know what we have become. So I'll stop there. I feel like I've said a lot, in case you had a question, and then I'll get back to you, to the story.
Langston Clark:I do have a question. You mentioned something I had never heard of before A junior on a junior board. What is a junior board? I have an idea of what it might be. I don't want to make an assumption, but I'll let you explain first and I'll get my follow up.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Yeah. So you know, we think of a board service in a very, you know, sort of linear, modular way, but one way that organizations, particularly larger organizations, give opportunities for younger, emerging leaders. We may have heard, like A&T has the Young Alumni Council. So same thing, different, different way to say it right. We had a give get which meant that we had a dollar amount that we had to either give or fundraise to give to the organization, while we didn't have any fiduciary responsibility, which means we didn't have any governing responsibility that board of boards of directors have for nonprofits we had a fundraising responsibility and we were in our own right, you know, sort of representatives of this next generation of leaders which could at some point maybe transfer or transition to full board leadership. But the board was reserved for those who were 40 and under.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:And so we are our own space to fundraise. I was also part of a similar group with Alvin Ailey. They have a they're the Young Patron Circle. Similar because it's it's that's a little more fundraising versus board, but these are all sort of mid career emerging evolving councils, junior boards, all of those sort of sit in the same area which allows for young people to have some sort of governing experience. In every organization may define it differently, but for that organization we largely did, our role was was fundraising.
Langston Clark:Yeah, I'm going to skip ahead to a question I have later on and we'll come back to you telling your story and talking to us a little bit about young black and giving back. I have these internal tensions with with boomers in our elders a little bit and I've asked this question before on another episode and I feel like there shouldn't be junior boards. I think within black organizations there should be affirmative action based upon age. So hear me out, I think every black nonprofit so you're a Delta right. So I think at the highest level of Delta I'm not Greek, but I'm just using this as an example at the highest national, international level, whatever that a woman from each decade should be represented on that board.
Langston Clark:So, like technically, if there's a 19 year old somewhere who's crossed already, they could be on the board.
Langston Clark:They should be on the board a 20 year old, somebody in their 20s or 30s or 40s or 50s or 60s or 70s, because I think you get more diversity of ideas and I actually think it puts, if it's structured in a way where the elders then have to mentor the younger people to ensure that they have the knowledge base to keep the thing going, I actually think that that would be more effective than what's happening right now because I get this is that in some cases that we miss out on opportunities for philanthropy in different positions because those spaces are occupied by our elders but there's not a clear entry point into younger folks having a say so. And I'm 39, so I don't consider myself to be a young professional anymore, like at 35, that's pretty much the cutoff for me because I'm deep in my career, I'm tenured, I have all these accomplishments in my career, but when I get over here it's bless your heart. You know what I'm saying, so just I would like to get your thoughts on that.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Yeah, so you have a very intergenerational approach, which I think is great, right. I think every board should strive to have some intergenerationality at some point. Right, I think that the idea of organizations or boards being monolithic is never the approach, whether that's monolithic in gender, whether that's monolithic in race. I mean I even think that black organizations should have at least one other person who's not black. Right, I mean, I believe in being black led, meaning that at least 50% of your staff and board are black, so that they are representative of the community. Right, because then we get into a power and balance. Like, I don't believe in white folks telling the narrative and controlling our organizations. That's just me. But from an intergenerational standpoint, I do think that it's important, right.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Usually, what we do, what is taught, trained and hopefully put into practice, is what's called a board matrix, and you kind of write down if you think about a matrix, right, like a table across on the rows, you would put the skill sets right or whatever it is that you want in a board. So let's say, let's say it is age, right, you may put, you know, 20 to 30, 30 to 40, 40 to 50, 50 to 60, etc. Right, and then down in that first column you might put the names of the persons who are currently on the board and then you kind of put an X and then you're able to look at it and see like, oh man, like all of our Xs are 50 and above. Or man, like all of our Xs are 40 and below right. Or you're able to look at your board and say, okay, we have Xs across, so we're diverse. You know, we're flattered if you will lack of a better term. Right, we're mixed enough on this matrix, where it's a balance of what we want and so we're good. But if you look at the matrix and you're saying there's too many folks you know in who are over, you know 50 on the board and we want to skew it another way, cool. So then you create another matrix and then you put the skill sets that you're looking for, because here's the truth of the matter is like everybody, it is about age, but it's also about skill setting, what people are going to bring to your board. Right, because you would imagine that most of your 50 plus, 60 plus, are probably not going to be as technologically inclined as, say, you're boarding and under right. But if you need someone, let's say, who is well versed in finance or who has that experience I mean, sure, someone straight out of undergrad, absolutely, you know, if they graduated, you know, from Tief School of Business, they could. You know, probably you know account accounting wizards. But if you've had someone who's been at PWC for you know 25, 30 years, they're probably going to be able to just blow through you know a budget in a way that somebody else may not, right? So I think that the idea of a board matrix kind of helps you to see what you have and then you're able to kind of fill in to the degree of diversity that you want to have. And so I do think that there's value in having a mix of people. But for the just for the purposes of just having ages on there, I think we need to think about well, what is the diversity of age? How's that going to benefit said organization? And in some cases, depending on the organization and where they are.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:For us at YBGB, our board skewed much older when we first started. So it was me. Two, three of our inaugural board members were, at the time, late 40s. I think they all made a. Yeah, most of them were late 40s and since it's 10 years ago. Yeah, so they're all now. They're early 50s, early 60s.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:So our board was a seasoned board right, not old, but they were seasoned because that's what we needed. No shame to my peers, but I needed folks on my board who were able to get us in places and spaces that I couldn't, that were able to give us strategic advisement. And then those who one of our current board members was very active in helping us from the beginning because she wanted to know what it meant to be on a board and we were one of the first boards that she served on. She was like, yeah, I want to do this, but she assisted with our board work for a very long time.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:But I was intentional when I first started, because I'm really big on mentoring and advisors and things like that. I was like I'm gonna throw all these folks on the board because I knew what my peers could do. But I knew that if I was forming a board for this new organization 10 years ago, I needed people who knew more than I did in many different ways, and we only had like five or six board members, so we didn't have a huge board anyway. But our board was, by and large, all women, five, four or five. Four of the five were black women, one white woman, and they were all seasoned in their nonprofit careers. That was my intention.
Langston Clark:So I love the focus on young black and giving back. And so you said you all are at about 10 years of existence, right? So that'd be, next year will be 10 years, right?
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Is that right?
Langston Clark:Everyone, yep, yeah, okay, talk about some of the major wins that you've had in the first 10 years of young black and giving back like what are the highlights in your eyes?
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Wow, this is a good reflection. I should be taking my own notes, so I'll probably start with what's most recent. We got our first $50,000 grant two years ago through the Nielsen Foundation was a data grant. It's called Data for Good. We were able to release our first second research project, but definitely first, national major research that looks at black lead, black benefit benefiting nonprofits and how they operate in their fundraising, on needs and capacity building gaps. So that was a major win, because it helped to put us on the map and solidify what we were capable of.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:But we were only able to do that by another win, which has been our giving day. So our give 828 giving day, which will be seven years next year, and so when we started give 828 in 2018, it was important that we had a light that was shown on so many black lead, black benefiting nonprofits, cause at that time, we had been around officially four years and had been working with so many nonprofit leaders right, grassroots nonprofit leaders that I knew how hard it was for them to fundraise. Right, we had been done trainings with them, they had been part of our cohorts for our summits, and I knew that days like giving Tuesday, though, they have been a really helpful partner weren't designed for us, right, they didn't highlight us in a way that allowed us to be our authentic selves in a fundraising space. And so give 828 now has had over a thousand participants. We've raised over half a million dollars collectively over these eight years, and it's not easy, right?
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Like crowdfunding is one of the most popular, newer ways of fundraising, so online fundraising has only been around since 1999. And so, even with that, there's still a number of nonprofits who don't have donate buttons on their website. There are people, right, donors of particular generations, that are like no, I'm not giving online, I don't trust it, like, I don't want my data, we don't want you know. So we have to think about all of those things when it comes to fundraising and how accessible it is. So, that being said, having a giving day that's been around for so long and having so many participants and people who come back year after year, and seeing numbers you know 15,000, 18,000 that they've raised in one day, and some organizations that sets their budget for the year, right, that says a lot. You have one day and it's like it kicks you off for the whole year and then you come back and do it again. So that's a win.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:And I would say partnerships right, we're partnered with the Doogood Institute. So you can see it right, no, right behind me, there we go, and the office that I sit in now, doogood, has been partners with us for almost four years, since 2020. And as a social impact hub here at the University of Maryland, they we have seen the value of Black-led nonprofits and Black-benefiting nonprofits here in the state of Maryland, and so they've partnered with YBGB through our giving day, through our impact interns program. It's been a wonderful partnership, that's been mutually beneficial. But that's a major win.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:And I would say other partners where we partnered with Indiana University and folks like Tyrone McKinley-Freeman, who were ride or die champions for our work as early as 2013, 2014.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:We first started, we met in 2014, but we started with a partnership with well, then it just became the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy they had just changed their name in 2013.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:And so for us it was important to have partners like that that were able to kind of put a stamp on our work, because we were so new and so Black and you know, just weren't really sure how we were going to be received.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:So I would say partnerships GiveA28 and our biggest grant would probably be our biggest win. And then, I would say last, our community of folks who have been impacted. I think there's stories that if I weren't just one of one team, I'd probably be able to collect a lot of stories and tell them, but I know that we have impacted so many people. I see so many alum of ours and so many organizations that are doing amazing things and I'm just like wow, right. So I think that if you could just touch somebody along the way and I think that that's the impact of our work Like it may not be loud, but someone coming to a training or somebody participating in a giving day or something that we've provided has really helped to catapult them, is really what speaks to our work, yeah, so I'm gonna try to get this right.
Langston Clark:So, if you can see, right, right oh, I'm so bad at this right here.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Yes.
Langston Clark:Dr Freeman's book is. So I'm glad you brought him up right and hold the book up because, yeah, hold up a little bit. There we go right, there, right. So I'm glad you brought him up. I lost my finger placement there. It is Right.
Langston Clark:I'm glad you brought him up because he was actually on the podcast last year talking about his book, madam CJ Walker and the Gospel of giving right, and so, if you all are listening, go back to last year's conversations, our series on black philanthropist, and I want to talk about something really quick before we get into these other questions. As you'll notice, next to my book cover for Dr Freeman's book I have my plaque for the endowment I started with two of my friends, so we had it from a and TDP is the endow scholarship, which actually people who support this podcast 10% of what you get through the patron goes to support that endowment. Talk about who you are as a philanthropist and, like your because we you talked about your endowment at auntie suck a little bit about who you are as a giver and in that work.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Um, yeah, so when my class celebrated 10 years, which will soon be 10 years ago, I told you I feel like we graduated many moons ago. We started a 10 for 10 campaign. So 10 years for $10,000. That was our, that was our stick, and we were encouraged because we were over our mark. After you know some time, you know we might as well just roll into an endowment. You're so close, just go ahead and do it like okay. So that's how we started, right. It started off as a class milestone celebration which evolved into into an endowment. We have some immediate use funds that we like to allocate towards student leaders so that they can travel to professional development, that kind of thing.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Um, but again, that was representative of what I knew, what I know of of us. Right then, given the right mission and the right program or or initiative to support, right, we will support. I think our generation just needs to know what they're believing in. But more than anything, you know the fundraiser's credo, if you will, is people give to people, right, I can know of an organization or know of a program, but I'm more likely going to give to, like all right links is asking. I'm just support, just on the strength right, and so that's what happens in the world of fundraising is people do give to people while not obviously giving to the person, but they give by virtual the relationship, and so I've really leaned on that. I think if I had more time and more yeah, more capacity, that the idea of fundraising for our own organization would be more at the forefront.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:But I think, for me, when I think of giving and how I give, I give to folks that are so and initiatives that I believe in because someone else believes in them, and the closer the relationship you're like okay, so and so, serving on the board and you know they're doing whatever the thing is. Or, unfortunately, you know, I have, you know really good girlfriend who you know lost her spouse and so you know, supporting you know, when they have their big 5k run for the organization, I'm there because you know that was her husband and, yeah, what else would I be right? So I think some of it it goes back to donor motivations. Right, I'm motivated by relationship, I'm motivated by what I care about.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Not necessarily, you're not at all like recognition, while I think at some point it would be great to, like you know, have a name on a building. If ever gave like that to a and T, right, but now, like giving is just done because it's needed as necessary, but I would say, hands down, my biggest giving goes back to God and goes back to church in my tithe and my 10%. So that's, you know, that's something that is that is consistent for me and allows me to do all the other things because that's my, that's my first commitment.
Langston Clark:Yeah, so that's about the significance of the date 828.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Yeah, so it's a lot of things that happen consistently on August 28th and have been for a very long time. So let me see if I can get them all. It's the day that Senator Obama announced his candidacy for president. Don't ask me the years, because I just I've watched those. Unfortunately, it's the date that Emmett Till was killed. It is the date that Jackie Robinson joined the majors Wow. It is the date that I deal to Chala died, oh my gosh. It is the date that Martin Luther.
Langston Clark:King. We pause there for a moment. Yes, listen, when Chadwick Boseman died, like this, listen, this was all during COVID George Floyd, floyd, all that stuff was happening. When I saw George Floyd, like I was just like, oh, this is normal, it's trademarked all over again. Do you know what I'm saying? Like I had become numb to like all the death, like something's just you know, same thing's going to happen again. But when Chad died, that's when, like everything, just it all hit me. Then, like I was like you asked my wife, I was like, walking around the house with a drink in my hand talking about my king is dead, like it was. It was terrible for me. It was terrible. Anyways, go ahead.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:I didn't mean to cut you off, okay, no, no, no, no, it was. It's definitely a sad day and it's still really sad. It was the day that Martin Luther King Jr gave us. I have a dream speech. I know I'm missing something. I know I'm missing something. I think I might have to cheat a little bit. But all of the things let's stay focused. All of the things happened on this day, and the reason why it is so important is because, with all those things happening, I said, oh, in 2017, we meaning young black and giving back.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:We did a day that had to do. We just did our own crowdfunding day, right, and on our crowdfunding day, we raised like $5,000. So we were like, oh well, if we can raise $5,000, then surely we can open it up. And so at the time, we had a volunteer who told us like, hey, do you know what the significance of this day? And at the time, you know Chadwick had passed away. And so we were like, well, not really. And so she told us and I didn't know the fact about Jackie Robinson and the majors it was one of the days at Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
Langston Clark:That was the last one.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:So all of these things serendipitously happening on this day and Ava DuVernay actually has a video, if you go into the Black Sonion call August 28th, where she did a video on it, and so all of these things I was like, okay, this is confirmation that this is the day. So, anyways, that's the significance of the day. We did a little not little, but we did a what would end up being a test crowdfunding initiative in 2017. We were like yo, if we can do this, I'm like yo, I'm not keeping this for myself. Like we're going to, we're going to push this out, and so it is a crowdfunding day. But we give toolkits, we give social media graphics. You know, we support, we have partners with incentives and cash incentives. We do a lot of partnerships with community foundations because they're able to support on a local level, which is a huge driver. So the day, even though it's had, you know, some highs and lows, it is now synonymous with with, with Black giving.
Langston Clark:That's what's up. Okay, so I'm I want to ask a more personal conversation, okay, doing like my research on you and there's, like this, this group called Black Benefactors. Right, Talk about that, because I didn't get all the details of it, but I want to hear about it, how it got started and like what it is that you all do.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Yeah, so in your professional stalker research, I mean in your preparation for the show today? Yeah, so Black Benefactors was my very first giving circle that I was a part of. I had no idea what giving circles were, and one of our beloved inaugural board members, tracy, I remember I was telling you about our, our our starting five, if you will. Tracy Webb had a website called Black Gives Back, which I was around for years. It's no longer around. She started this giving circle and I joined in 2012 and it was an opportunity for $250 a year.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Black folks in DC pull their resources together and then we decided as a collective where we wanted our money to go, and so through that, we we granted out. So it officially closes doors in 2021 or 2022. 2022, we officially closed our doors because we had done a lot. We had given over $80,000 a way to several not several almost almost close to 100, if not a little over 100. Nonprofits are very close to it, but for us, for me, it was I know where I'm giving my money. I know I can make a decision about where it goes. Yeah, and so we're not going to have to deal with the red tape, or these organizations don't have to deal with the red tape of of philanthropy.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:In our pre-talk you talked about how little money goes to us. It's 2% of all institutional philanthropic dollars makes it to our organizations. And so to know that through this giving circle black benefactors right, I used the term beneficiaries earlier right, that's usually who we are on the receiving end we would like for us to be the ones holding the purse strings and making the decisions, and that's what we did through black benefactors. And so it was. It was a beautiful community and YBGB was one of the last recipients. So, in good faith, we were given one of the last grants. So we actually will be starting a giving circle of our own in partnership with some of our original, with some of the original members from black benefactors and a really large partner here in the DMV area. So we'll be launching that in 2024. So really excited about that.
Langston Clark:So let me ask this question. So the question is how? How do you start a giving circle? And I'm going to tie that to another question of what type of training and support can someone who's interested in philanthropy get from young black and giving back? Can you repeat the question one more time? All right? So it's two questions put together. One is how do you start a giving circle? And then I would say is that part of the training that you will do at Young Black and Giving Back, teaching people how to start giving circles? If so, or if not, what are some of the other things that someone could learn from, like being affiliated with Young Black and Giving Back?
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Got it. So a giving circle can be started by anybody, as long as it's a group of folks who decide to pool their resources. While it is a wonderful crowdfunding and community representation in the Black community Every community, not every a lot of communities do it A lot of Black giving circles are part of what's called the Community Investment Network, or CIN. So if you go there you'll find a list of a number of Black giving circles. Is a Black man's giving circle and I believe they're in Dallas and they all pool $1,000. So they're giving circle. It's like $100,000, like a million dollars, something amazing. Yeah For goals.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:So one of I call it the Godmother of Black philanthropy. Her name is Valeta Fullwood. She wrote a book called Giving Back and that book chronicles the beautiful history of Black philanthropy and showcases different folks and one including her aunt, that just talks about how Black philanthropy looks a lot different. You know it's time, talents and treasures. And so she started InGap, which is the new generation of African American philanthropy, out of Charlotte, and they give $365. So a dollar a day. They all pool together and then they grant it back out to organizations in Charlotte Mecklenburg area. So the idea of a giving circle. There's also Sierra Coleman, who started GoGirl and it's G-E-A-U-X girl, and they started during the pandemic. They believe in, of course, giving, but they also enjoy luxury, so they do like really fancy brunches and then you know it's appropriate together.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:But it's really about coming together with people who share your values and share the things you care about.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:And what's key for me is being able to grant that money back to organizations that you know that you care about.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:And it eliminates the red tape and we are the ones that are making the decisions for the organizations in our communities that we care about. And so that's the beauty of giving circles for me, because even if we're granting $2,500 or $25,000, right to these organizations, they know that it's coming from black folks who care right. Then we pool it again and we do it all again and we get to make the rules. So this year we're like, hey, we're gonna give to, you know, black maternal health. Next year, as a giving circle, we can decide that we wanna give to Black STEM, like we keep changing the rules because we change right, and it makes, it puts the control back with organizations and the people right who are part of the community, not solving the problems, but we're also helping to fund those who are helping to solve the problems. So, and in short, no, we don't teach it through the Young Black Giving Back Institute, not formally anyway, but, I think, through example, especially when we get ready to launch our own giving circle next year.
Langston Clark:All right, and so, because we have roots as a book club and you did mention a few books so far in the discussion, what are some of the books that you're currently reading or have read that have inspired your journey as a nonprofit and philanthropic founder?
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Hmm, okay, so I mentioned Giving Back right, which is largely a photo book, but it has beautiful stories. We mentioned Tyrone's book, which is the history right. This history is so key. We hear and we think about Madame TJ Walker as the first black billionaire, however, or millionaire, and the story that people don't know a lot about was her giving right, her philanthropy, but keeping in line with black women. So I just finished listening to Walk Through Fire. It's the autobiography of Sheila Johnson and, as you may or may not know, sheila Johnson is the ex-wife of Bob Johnson and she's the first black billionaire, and so you know, her story touches me personally and professionally for a number of reasons, and I think the part of her story philanthropically that connects here is that she always had a heart for giving right.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:The part of my story that I didn't share was that my parents were both social workers growing up, so I saw them practice and model giving through their work. I saw them model taking care of other people's children to make them safe. So I always had it ingrained in me about the idea of taking care of even though they did it through a sort of city platform and government and policy and all of those things my parents really cared about the kids that they were providing a better or different life, and so, similarly, how Mrs Johnson created or started her philanthropic career was because these are the things that she was really passionate about, she cared about and she came from a life of privilege, right. So she didn't grow up poor, but it was a decision of her father to lead that really changed the trajectory of her life and the way that her mother mothered. And when she was old enough, she got to a place of privilege.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:She was intentional about giving back to children who were doing the things that she loved right, which is music, the arts and providing experiences led by black people that would not be expected. So equestrian writing or buying art, playing the violin in an orchestra right. So she's connected with the with Levine, I think Institute of Music, question writing and several nonprofits. She owns the Mystics, and so black folks showing up in these spaces that would be unexpected and her being able to use her money for ways that matter to her. So she's in full control of it and reading the story. It has a whole bunch more, but just knowing that for her building her career being a self-made billionaire and knowing that a huge part of what she does is sitting on boards and giving back and serving. For me, it was important in another model of you know, another way to make an impact in the community, so I would say that was the last book that I listened to an audio book, so yeah.
Langston Clark:All right, Ebonie Johnson, cooper, Aggie Pride, thank you for joining us here today on Entrepreneurial Appetite. And yeah, appreciate you joining us.
Ebonie Johnson Cooper:Thank you, I appreciate Langston. This was fun All right.
Langston Clark:Bye-bye, acescom.