Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative has committed $896 million to advance racial wealth equity.

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John,

To invest in Black wealth, we must invest in Black health. One important way we can do this is to invest in Black doctors and the institutions that educate them.

Today, I have the pleasure of sharing momentous news. Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative just announced a $600 million gift to the endowments of our nation’s four historically Black medical schools, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine & Science, Howard University College of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, and Morehouse School of Medicine, as well as $5 million in seed funding to support the creation of a new medical school in New Orleans, the Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine.

The gift reaffirms our commitment to the missions of these four institutions: Training the next, more diverse generation of doctors. And it reflects the Greenwood Initiative’s mission to invest in the institutional wealth of these four schools, who have been historically underfunded, so they can better support their students and the communities they will serve as doctors.

These gifts are the largest, single investments the four medical schools have ever received, and will more than double three of the four schools’ endowments. With this support, their institutional capacity to respond to the rising costs of tuition, innovative research, and operations will be bolstered.

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It’s no secret that health and wealth are inextricably linked. More than 80 percent of health outcomes can be linked to socioeconomic factors and debilitating health problems take an enormous economic toll on families and communities. And yet, racial and ethnic health disparities still cost the U.S. more than $451 billion annually.

Research shows that one key to solving these health and racial wealth inequities is simple: we need more Black doctors.

However, less than 6% of U.S. doctors are Black ([link removed]) .

When seen by Black physicians, Black medical patients have better outcomes. They receive medical care more frequently and are 34 percent more likely to receive preventative care.

This gift is our second major gift to these institutions. In 2020, we gave $100 million ([link removed]) , which was, at the time, their largest philanthropic gift from a single donor. In 2021, Bloomberg Philanthropies gave an additional $6 million to the four historically Black medical schools to expand their efforts providing access to COVID-19 vaccines in their local underserved communities.

We have witnessed the transformative power of our initial partnership. The $100 million gift significantly reduced the student debt burden of nearly 1,000 future Black doctors, providing these graduates greater agency and choice in selecting specialties to pursue.

As a result, more than 50 percent of the graduates selected primary care specialties — like internal medicine, pediatrics and OB-GYN. Many graduates also opted to work in underserved communities, urban communities, and public hospitals.

By investing in the endowments of these schools, we hope to see a transformative ripple effect. This gift will benefit not only the institution’s current students, but the many future patients the graduating doctors will see, the communities where they will practice, and the state of health and racial wealth equity in this country. But we know that philanthropy can’t do it alone. It is our hope that this commitment continues to help attract more support for these schools.

Warmly,
Garnesha Ezediaro

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