UNCF
American philanthropic organization which provides scholarships to black students
The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) is an American philanthropic organization that funds scholarships for Black students and general scholarship funds for 37 private historically black colleges and universities. UNCF was incorporated on April 25, 1944, by Frederick D. Patterson (then president of what became Tuskegee University), Mary McLeod Bethune, and others. UNCF is headquartered at 1805 7th Street, NW in Washington, D.C. In 2005, UNCF supported approximately 65,000 students at over 900 colleges and universities with approximately $113 million in grants and scholarships. About 60% of these students are the first in their families to attend college, and 62% have annual family incomes of less than $25,000. UNCF also administers over 450 named scholarships.
UNCF's president and chief executive officer is Michael Lomax. Past presidents of the UNCF included William H. Gray and Vernon Jordan.
Scholarships
Though founded to address funding inequities in education resources for African Americans, UNCF-administered scholarships are open to all ethnicities; the great majority of recipients are still African-American. It provides scholarships to students attending its member colleges as well as to those going elsewhere.
Graduates of UNCF member institutions and scholarships have included many Black people in the fields of business, politics, health care and the arts.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “UNCF” as american philanthropic organization which provides scholarships to black students. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as american philanthropic organization which provides scholarships to black students. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q735469. VIAF identifies the subject as 138433401. The Library of Congress control number is n85016016. Authority coordinates are 38.914, -77.021. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1805 and 2005.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “UNCF” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.