Prayers given on National Day of Racial Healing

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation will grant $24 million in support funding for its racial healing initiative in communities across the country, including in Battle Creek.

It is the latest investment by the Battle Creek-based foundation to oversee parts of its Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation initiative, which launched last year. The purpose of the TRHT, spearheaded by WKKF senior adviser Gail Christopher, is to end racial barriers, open discussions on race in communities and push for equity through healing and policy design.

WKKF will award 10 grants to organizations within the next five years to implement the initiative’s framework in communities, the foundation said Tuesday.

“TRHT’s purpose is to improve our ability as communities and as a country to see ourselves in each other, so that we can share a more equitable future for all children to thrive,” WKKF President and CEO La June Montgomery Tabron was quoted as saying in a Tuesday news release.

Tabron said the work is critical because “we must bridge the divides in our country.”

In Michigan, the Council of Michigan Foundations will receive $4.2 million over the next five years to support TRHT in Battle Creek, Flint, Kalamazoo and Lansing. CMF said it hopes to use the funding to bring together community leaders to “collectively advance narrative change, racial healing and relationship building.”

“Michigan prospers when our communities are vibrant, with great opportunities for all – this is our vision statement as an organization, and an ideal we steadfastly believe in,” CMF President and CEO Rob Collier said in the release. “TRHT represents a catalytic process to move local communities towards realizing this vision.”

Others grant recipients include:

  • First Alaskans Institute (Alaska)
  • Foundation for Louisiana (Baton Rouge and New Orleans)
  • Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo (Buffalo, New York)
  • Woods Fund of Chicago/The Chicago Community Trust (Chicago)
  • Communities Foundation of Texas (Dallas)
  • Southern California Grantmakers (Los Angeles)
  • Initiatives of Change, Inc. (Richmond, Virginia)
  • Black Belt Community Foundation (Selma, Alabama)
  • Saint Paul Foundation (Saint Paul, Minnesota)

A racial equity resource guide that shapes upcoming work in communities is available online at racialequityresourceguide.org. The guide also is posted here.