Ballmer Group, New Profit and Echoing Green Announce New Initiative to Invest in Black Led Nonprofit Organizations

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CST Weekly,published weekly on Wednesdays and distributed in the Township of Bloom, (publishing 52 issuesannually). W ritten permission isrequired to reproduce contents inwholeor part from the Generalmanager or the publisher CST Weekly does not assume the responsibilityfor nor are weable to return unsolicited marterials. Deadline for advertising is everyMonday at noon. For information on subscriptions oradvertising call us at (773)783-1251. Our office is locatedat 8741S. Greenwood Ave., Ste# 107, Chicago, Illinois 60619.

CST Weekly,published weekly on Wednesdays and distributed in the Township of Bloom, (publishing 52 issuesannually). W ritten permission isrequired to reproduce contents inwholeor part from the Generalmanager or the publisher CST Weekly does not assume the responsibilityfor nor are weable to return unsolicited marterials. Deadline for advertising is everyMonday at noon. For information on subscriptions oradvertising call us at (773)783-1251. Our office is locatedat 8741S. Greenwood Ave., Ste# 107, Chicago, Illinois 60619.

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Drug prices: SB1682 requires pharmacies to post a notice informing consumers that they may request current pharmacy retail prices at the point of sale.

New York -- Ballmer Group, Echoing Green, and New Profit announce $40M in seed funding for a new initiative to address the systemic funding gap for Black-led nonprofit organizations in the U.S. The grant will fund a five-year initiative to build leadership and sustainability of Black-led organizations focused on economic mobility. Over 100 Black-led organizations will receive both capital and operational support to help spur innovative solutions and provide Black leaders with the tools that they need to scale and achieve their missions over the long term.

“The goal of this initiative is to address an undercapitalized market and invest in Black leadership to spur innovation and improve economic mobility,” said Eshauna Smith, Director of Community Impact at Ballmer Group. “Industry leaders New Profit and Echoing Green come to the table with a combined 60 years of experience supporting founders and emerging leaders and shaping economic mobility in the U.S. The good news is that race-based funding gaps are addressable. There are incredible opportunities for funders like us to step up, and we are excited to take this first step.” of philanthropic funding. A recent study by Echoing Green and the Bridgespan Group shows that the funding received is smaller and more likely to be restricted than white-led organizations. Data shows that early-stage Black-led nonprofits have 24% smaller overall revenues and 76% smaller unrestricted net assets, indicators of continued bias and lack of trust in Black leaders in the funding landscape.

“Despite the disparity in funding for Black-led organizations, there is no shortage of visionary Black leaders who are joining with their communities to build new systems of opportunity in America,” said Tulaine Montgomery, Co-CEO of New Profit. “This support from Ballmer Group allows us to help advance the impact of those leaders, who are grounded in and guided by the assets, expertise, and brilliance of their constituents and communities.”

Pritzker is shown here earlier this year in a Capitol News Illinois file photo. The governor signed more than 300 bills that become law on Jan. 1. (Capitol News Illinois file photo) to the appropriate school support personnel.

The initiative takes a two-part strategy to help grow Blackled organizations past the start-up and middle growth phases where too often lack of capital limits scale.

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FOID card changes: HB562 enacts several changes to the Firearm Owner Identification card law. Among other things, it provides for a streamlined renewal process for FOID cards and Concealed Carry Licenses for people who voluntarily submit fingerprint records. It also allows the Illinois State Police to issue a combined FOID card and Concealed Carry License to qualified applicants, and it establishes a new Violent Crime Intelligence Task Force to take enforcement action against people with revoked FOID cards.

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Student mental health: HB576 and SB1577 allow students in Illinois up to five excused absences to attend to their mental or behavioral health without providing a medical note. Those students will be given an opportunity to make up any work they missed during the first absence and, after using a second mental health day, may be referred

Funding disparities limit access to capital for Black founders and leaders. “The troubling pattern of Black nonprofit leaders being unable to scale organizations is overwhelmingly due to limited access to capital compared. For these brilliant leaders and their timely innovations, we need to increase their ability to scale appropriately,” Echoing Green President Cheryl Dorsey notes. “That means transformative community-led solutions are left to languish on the vine. This grant from Ballmer Group will enable us to simultaneously sustain proximate leadership and spur economic mobility among an undercapitalized and often overlooked demographic.”

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Hair styles: SB817 prohibits discrimination in schools against individuals on the grounds of wearing natural or ethnic hairstyles, which include dreadlocks, braids, twists and afros.

Despite making up around 10% of nonprofit leadership in the U.S., Black and Latine nonprofit leaders only receive 4%

Lemonade stands: SB119 prohib- www.citizennewspapergroup.com its public health authorities from regulating or shutting down lemonade stands or similar operations that are operated by children under the age of 16. Known as “Hayli’s Law,” it was inspired by 12-year-old Hayli Martinez, whose lemonade stand in Kankakee was shut down by local officials.

United States. In June, President Joe Biden also signed a bill designating Juneteenth as a federal holiday.

Echoing Green will utilize the Ballmer Group funding to support organizations under two years old. Black-led start-up organizations have significant challenges raising initial capital. Echoing Green’s model is designed to provide both early investment and follow-on-funding to overlooked talent with ongoing assistance in the areas of fundraising, strategic planning, board development and operational practices. These foundational supports are key to creating sustainable enterprises.

Juneteenth: HB3922 recognizes June 19, or “Juneteenth,” as an official state holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the

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New Profit will use the funding from Ballmer Group to support proof-of-concept through early-scale nonprofits. Blackled organizations at these stages of enterprise development often have the potential to create outsized impact but face systemic barriers in securing the flexible resourc

2022 ACLS Digital Justice Seed Grantees work on a podcast for their project “Building an Institute for Empathic Immersive Narrative” at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University. American Council of Learned Societies.