Deutsche Bank hosts reception for Black Male Donor Collaborative
Deutsche Bank and the Black Male Donor Collaborative (BMDC) co-hosted an informational session and cocktail reception at 60 Wall Street to raise awareness of this innovative partnership that seeks to improve educational outcomes for Black males in New York City.
The session, led by Brendan Bush, a Director in Global Markets at Deutsche Bank, celebrated the achievements made by the BMDC to date and highlighted future opportunities. Professor Pedro Noguera of New York University presented the research on the challenges facing Black males, and offered policy recommendations for how to close the achievement gap.
Nonprofit organizations that were awarded funds from the BMDC discussed some of the work they have been doing with Black males in Brooklyn and Harlem, including a robotics demonstration by NYU Polytechnic’s Central Brooklyn Robotics Initiative (CBRI). Under CBRI, engineering fellows collaborate with teachers from Central Brooklyn schools to engage young students in enhanced Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning by using robotics as a hook. The program uses students' fascination with modern technologies to encourage learning, while also seeking to address inadequate teacher preparation in STEM and poor achievements in these areas by Black, Hispanic and female students. A former student from Groundwork, Inc. talked about his journey through a four-year college preparation and internship program where he now works for the organization counseling students from schools in East New York and Bedford-Stuyvesant.
BMDC is a collaborative funding initiative that seeks to reduce the academic achievement gap and raise the academic performance, graduation rates and college readiness in New York City. The collaborative is comprised of a broad base of foundation and corporate donors, who jointly develop grant guidelines, bylaws and make funding decisions. The BMDC’s grantmaking focuses on Central Harlem and Central Brooklyn, where there are large concentrations of school-age Black males with low levels of academic achievement. To learn more, please contact Nicole Leach of the Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation at nicole.leach@db.com.
A demonstration of the program's robotics was part of the evening.