The Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, one of the largest private funders in North Carolina, has announced that it will divest its endowment from tobacco and pursue a socially responsible community-focused investment strategy in support of grantmaking centered on racial equity, health, and well-being.

Founded in 1947 with $5 million in R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company stock from a bequest from Kate Bitting Reynolds—an heir to the Reynolds tobacco fortune—the trust’s assets were reported to be worth $589 million in 2020, according to its Form 990. The trust is planning to exclude tobacco producers from its investment portfolio, eliminating direct exposure to tobacco companies by the end of 2022. In addition, the trust intends to allocate $100 million to publicly traded companies that are economically important in North Carolina, particularly those that are based in the state and provide jobs to North Carolinians.

As part of its 75th anniversary retrospective, the trust is taking a critical look at the source of the assets that continue to fund its philanthropy in the Winston-Salem community, acknowledging that the original bequest came from a fortune built on “tobacco and the sale and labor of enslaved Black people who worked in the tobacco fields.” With this history in mind, the trust intends to focus its grantmaking on strategies and initiatives that center racial equity, help change inequitable systems, and build the power of marginalized and oppressed people.

“We may not have built this house in our time, but we need to identify and make the appropriate repairs to its foundation to heal and work together to achieve the outcomes we seek,” said Reynolds Trust president Laura Gerald. “I never met Mrs. Reynolds but based on her legacy, I’d like to think that is exactly what she would want us to do.”

(Photo credit: Reynolds Charitable Trust)