Goldman Sachs’s One Million Black Women initiative has announced new investments, partnerships, and grants to help advance Black women and girls across the United States.

Launched in March 2021 with a ten-year, $10 billion commitment, including $100 million in philanthropic capital, One Million Black Women aims to address the gender and racial biases that Black women have faced for generations by investing in areas including education, health care, affordable housing, small businesses, and workforce development. The latest round of funding will support seventeen organizations and projects, many of them identified through listening sessions held with nearly twenty thousand Black women and the One Million Black Women Advisory Council.

The funding includes investment capital to expand the impact of seven organizations and entrepreneurs, including the Grameen America Elevate Initiative, which will make microloans and provide financial training and asset- and credit-building tools to underserved Black women entrepreneurs, and On the Road in Dallas, which will work to increase the number of women in high-paying, skilled auto repair jobs through an extensive apprenticeship program.

The initiative also announced four new partnerships, including the King Center in Atlanta in support of the relaunch of the Beloved Community Leadership Academy, with a One Million Black Women cohort for Black girls, and the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation in Oakland to address food insecurity and low literacy rates by employing Black women-owned restaurants to provide meals in high-needs areas and help distribute books through new Eat. Learn. Play. Town Libraries.

In addition, One Million Black Women awarded grants to six organizations, including Black Girls Breathing, which provides free and accessible mental health care resources to Black women and girls, and the Jeremiah Program, which works to disrupt the cycle of poverty for single mothers and their children by offering quality early childhood education, a safe and affordable place to live, empowerment, and life skills training.

“Through the listening sessions, we’ve heard from Black women all over the country. These women are building non-profit organizations and companies with their personal savings and loans from family members because they care so deeply about their communities,” said Prairie View A&M University president Ruth Simmons. “I am so pleased that with this next round of investments, partnerships, and grants, we are able to support these phenomenal women and we can see how transformative their initiatives and projects can be.”

For a complete list of funding recipients, see the Goldman Sachs website.

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