Dear friend,

During Black History Month 2025, UNCF celebrates the Black History makers and heroes of the African American community. Those courageous individuals, from all walks of life, walked and ran, argued and wrote, stood up and sat down to defend our inalienable right to excellence and justice. This month, we highlight our educators who have trained the minds and sustained the spirits of generations of African Americans. We salute our HBCUs for the extraordinary job they have done for over 150 years. We honor them for their scholarship, excellence and high achievement and for graduating hundreds of thousands of outstanding Americans, of all races; Americans who have made great contributions to the prosperity and stability of our nation.

When students attend HBCUs, in addition to getting an outstanding education, they are nurtured by caring faculty and staff who are very familiar with the challenging environments from which most of these students come—places where schools are underfunded, where college preparation is hit or miss, and where families have annual incomes less than $46,000. Our schools take every opportunity to provide equal resources to our students and allocate the same among the students so they reach equal outcomes.

Loyal donors like you help UNCF provide these students the resources they need. We give them the chance to get to college, to go through college and to graduate college. And when they do, they break the cycle of underachievement in their families and neighborhoods. They become the first in their families to graduate college BUT not the last.

This month, make a gift to support a new generation of talented students coming through the HBCU pipeline to become the college graduates and the professionals our nation needs.

Thank you for all you do to support UNCF, our students and our HBCUs.

Sincerely,

Michael L. Lomax, PhD President and CEO