The NFL is making good on its promise to fund the social justice movement through the funding of 13 grants to nonprofit organizations connected to the Inspire Change program.
The grants, totaling $4.3 million, are directed towards efforts to close the “digital divide.”
“Education is a basic human right, and we can no longer deprive students of the tools they need to succeed, including devices and the internet,” said Kelvin Beachum, a Cardinals lineman, and Players Coalition task force member. “I am proud of the work Players Coalition and the NFL has done to help close this ‘digital divide’ and help those children in underserved communities.”
As USA Today reports, “Inspire Change is the product of the partnership formed between the players and owners during the 2018 season and focuses on education, economic advancement, police and community relations, and criminal justice reform. To date, the league and its teams have provided more than $95 million to programs across the country.”
The list of 2021 grant recipients, provided by USA Today, is as follows:
• The Association for Enterprise Opportunity, which is based in D.C. and provides strategic and developmental assistance to Black-owned businesses and targets the wealth gap that exists between Black and white American families.
• Boys & Girls Clubs of America, which plans to use the funding to help create the TLC Youth Advocacy process, an effort to further educate 5,000 teens and build advocacy capacity via service-learning projects.
• Breakthrough Miami, whose Changemaker Leadership Track supports Breakthrough Scholars and recent alumni to build capacities to challenge the digital divide, gain early work experience, college advising, financial literacy, and leadership development.
• L.A.-based Center for Policing Equity, and its efforts to expand COMPSTAT usage – software that tracks incidents, identifies trends, and holds departments accountable by measuring crime.
• Covenant House, which is based in New York and focuses on workforce development and education services across the U.S. while serving youth and young families facing homelessness.
• Just City-Memphis and its Memphis Community Bail Fund, the Clean Slate Fund, and Court Watch programs.
• MENTOR, which provides resources and tools on virtual mentoring made available to mentoring programs nationwide.
• Oregon Justice Resource Center and its support of the Women’s Justice Project – the first and only program in Oregon that addresses the needs of women in the criminal justice system.
• Brooklyn’s Per Scholas, which enrolls 220 new individuals into its Software Engineering courses – a 15-week, a full-time training program that will include technical instruction and professional development in efforts to advance economic equity.
• Texas Appleseed’s work in three areas that disproportionately affect Black and Latinx Texans from low-income backgrounds: driver’s license suspensions, criminal record expungement, and debt collection.
• United Way Worldwide’s Young Men United initiative, which aims to support 25,000 young men of color in the United States to and through post-secondary and into entry-level career positions.
• Silver Spring, Maryland’s US Dream Academy and its Children of Incarcerated Parents initiative, which provides mentorship, leadership training, educational support, and career readiness for a unique population of primarily Black and Latinx young people in communities harmed by racial bias and mass incarceration.
The NFL has sponsored 20 different social justice organizations since forming the Inspire Change initiative.
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