POISE is celebrating 40 years of giving back to the community and we’d like you to join us.

POISE Foundation is one of the oldest Black Community Foundations in the United States, and our mission is to assist the Black community in achieving self-sustaining practices, through strategic leadership, collective giving, grantmaking and advocacy. Created in the format of a Community Foundation, POISE receives funds from a variety of donors. These funds may be unrestricted and used to support our grantmaking strategy, or donor-directed for specific charitable purposes.

Over the past 40 years, POISE Foundation has grown from an initial capitalization of $164K to a present value in excess of $11 million. During this same period, POISE has returned to the community that nurtured it more than $15.5 million in grants and scholarships to deserving organizations and families in the Pittsburgh area and throughout the United States. When you donate to POISE, you can be assured that your contribution is going to directly serve the Black Community.

2020 was a banner year for POISE. In addition to our regular grant and scholarship-making, we launched an important new fund called the Critical Community Needs Fund (CCNF) to support small to mid-sized Black-Led Organizations (BLOs) that are serving and sustaining the Black Community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus far, we have raised more than $1.3 million for the CCNF and awarded more than $1 million to 100 local BLOs in the region.

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