Thank you for your interest in partnering with Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) and the first annual HBCU FundFest Walk/Run/RideTM virtual event. The events of 2020 amplified the importance of supporting our Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) and the brilliant diverse students they educate. Despite the historic lack of funding and ongoing hardships due to the pandemic, HBCUs remain committed to their unique mission. As graduation season approaches and schools plan for the 2021/2022 academic year, HBCUs need our support now more than ever.

The HBCU FundFest will take place during the entire month of May 2021 as participants help shape up financial support for HBCUs at the same time they are shaping up for summer. Participants will walk, run or ride as many miles as they can during the month of May. Your brand will be in great company with potentially tens of thousands of community-minded people ranging from fitness enthusiasts, couch potatoes, and endurance athletes who want to stand up, speak up, and get moving in order to make a positive difference for our HBCUs.

To help launch this inaugural event, we seek a small group of committed and like-minded sponsors and advocates to engage their customers, employees, and broader communities in this worthy virtual event. The possibilities are endless for your company to connect with multiple constituencies and bring attention to the many ways we can work together to support tomorrow’s leaders.

With event registration, every participant will receive a cool and comfortable HBCU FundFest t-shirt and a one-of-a-kind finisher’s medal in the form of a brilliantly blingy “HBCU Class Ring”, both of which are sure to become collector’s items! Only one sponsor partner will have their name included on both the t-shirt, medal, virtual race bib, and finisher’s certificate, but there are many attractive benefits of sponsorship at all levels (see Sponsorship Opportunities section for further details).

Proceeds from this event will support the work of TMCF as they serve an essential role in providing educational access, recruiting diverse talent for career opportunities across the country, and providing leadership development training. The TMCF model produces the next generation of entrepreneurs, teachers, and community and corporate leaders who are ready to change the world by following in the trailblazing footsteps of the organization’s namesake, Justice Thurgood Marshall.

About Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF)
Established in 1987, TMCF is the only national organization exclusively representing the Black College Community. Their 47 member-schools include publicly-supported Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs), and Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs) across the country and are a critical source of higher education for all students. More than 80% of all students enrolled in HBCUs and PBIs attend TMCF member- schools, including 15 accredited engineering schools, six law schools, five pharmacy schools, and a host of undergraduate and graduate programs in the arts, sciences, mathematics, and engineering. TMCF member- schools are located in 22 states, the District of Columbia, and the US Virgin Islands. These schools primarily serve students from low-income and underserved communities, with over 72% of public HBCU students being Pell Grant eligible (with a family income of under $20,000), and 97% seeking some form of financial aid, indicating low to moderate family income. Additionally, over 52% of HBCU students are the first in their families to attend college.
With the generous contributions of corporate partners and philanthropic individuals, TMCF supports its member-schools and the broader community of nearly 300,000 students across the Black College Community.

TMCF assists these institutions with producing quality community-minded graduates, presenting industry-supported professional development and capacity-building strategies, and directly placing hundreds of HBCU graduates in economically sustaining careers while supporting thousands more in career readiness.

About Black Raven Endurance Collective
Black Raven Endurance Collective is a Black, disabled veteran-owned business on a mission to help bring more equity, inclusion, and economic opportunity for people of color within the endurance sports community. The inaugural HBCU FundFest Virtual Walk/Run/Ride event is the brainchild of our co-founders, two of whom helped create the ground-breaking Civil Rights Race Series, and the One Million Miles for Justice virtual event. Black Raven Endurance Collective is building a network of like-minded individuals, companies, and organizations to incubate and accelerate opportunities for BIPOC within our industry.

We invite you to join us!