On Feb. 15, Goldman Sachs announced the Black Women Impact Grant Program. The program is a part of its One Million Black Women initiative, which aims to impact the lives of one million Black women by 2030 through the investment of $10 billion in investment capital and $100 million in philanthropic capital. 

The program itself will provide 50 Black women-led and focused non-profits with $50,000 to $250,000 in general operating funding over two years. Applications are currently open from now until March 11, 2022. There will be a callback stage for selected applicants and the awards will be announced in June. 

The grant program came out of feedback Goldman Sachs received from Black female non-profit leaders. To qualify for the program, the non-profit has to be a 501(c)3 organization based in the U.S. that has an annual operating budget of $250,000 to $1,000,000.

The nonprofit also has to have Black women in positions of power within the organization and/or programs and be aligned to one of Goldman Sachs’ impact areas.

Those areas are education, healthcare, housing, financial help, digital connectivity, access to capital, and job & workforce advancements. According to the Goldman Sachs website, their impact is defined as:

• Education: Increasing access to affordable early childhood education and quality K-12 schools, as well as increasing access to secondary or vocational training. 
• Healthcare: Increasing access to affordable, quality healthcare by financing Federally Qualified Healthcare Centers, hospital partnerships, and innovations in telehealth. 
• Housing: Financing the creation and preservation of quality affordable housing.
• Financial health: Improving financial health, including innovation in financial education.
• Digital connectivity: Increasing access to capital for Black female entrepreneurs.
• Job creation & Workforce Advancement: Financing workforce development and companies that provide upskilling, which enables career advancement and higher wages.

The One Million Black Women initiative covers these seven areas to invest in because they found that just focusing on one wasn’t enough. 

Asahi Pompey told theGrio, “It’s not one thing; it has to be for sustained impact, it has to be a multi-pronged approach. Because the issues that affect Black women and the Black community, generally, are across a number of different areas. You can’t really systemically address these issues with investment and philanthropic capital unless you’re looking at healthcare, unless you’re talking about job creation, housing, the digital divide, access to capital.”

The application can be found at: www.gs.com/BlackWomenImpact