UNCF’s board chair, Milton H. Jones Jr. (above) announced a coming leadership transition for the organization. Photo by Noah Washington/The Atlanta Voice Change is coming to UNCF, according to the nonprofit’s leadership.  UNCF’s board chair, Milton H. Jones Jr. announced a coming leade rship transition for the organization, telling the Triumph Ballroom crowd that Dr. Michael L. Lomax’s more than two decades at the helm will end with the same deliberateness that has defined his presidency. “In every conversation that he and I have shared about this moment, Dr. Lomax has returned to the same commitment, an orderly transition in a successor position, not merely to sustain UNCF’s momentum, but to accelerate it,” said Milton H. Jones Jr., chairman of UNCF’s board of directors, addressed Lomax directly. “On behalf of the board, the staff, our member institutions, and every student whose life your work has touched, thank you.” Lomax’s tenure caps more than five decades in HBCU life. A Morehouse College graduate who returned to teach there and at Spelman for more than 20 years, he later chaired the Fulton County Board of Commissioners as the first African American elected to that post, before leading Dillard University and then taking over as UNCF’s president and CEO in 2004. Under his leadership, UNCF has raised more than $4 billion dollars and helped more than 300,000 students earn college degrees, according to the organization. The evening also brought an update on Project Acclaim, the student-managed investment initiative UNCF launched in partnership with Adage Capital Management. Photo by Noah Washington/The Atlanta Voice The 5th annual UNITE conference kicked off on July 20, 2026, at the Signia by Hilton Atlanta, opening with Mayor Andre Dickens welcoming attendees to a city he described as shaped by Black vision and institution-building. Dr. Harold L. Martin Sr., chancellor emeritus of North Carolina AT State University, delivered the night’s commencement address. The evening also brought an update on Project Acclaim, the student-managed investment initiative UNCF launched in partnership with Adage Capital Management. Dr. Shawn Thomas, director of investment leadership programs and Project Acclaim lead at UNCF, said the program’s first year gave two HBCUs, Morehouse College and Howard University, $4 million each in real capital to invest. By the end of the academic year, Thomas said Morehouse’s portfolio had grown to $4.9 million, while Howard’s reached $4.92 million. “It is important to note that these students were not participating in simulations. They were not participating in virtual platforms,” Thomas said. “They were managing real capital, conducting research, defending investment decisions, and experiencing the responsibility of institutional asset management.” Photo by Noah Washington/The Atlanta Voice Phillip Gross, co-founder and managing director of Adage Capital Management, said the firm’s bet on HBCU students paid off. “Rather than creating an environment of equal access to education, we wanted to create an environment of exceptional access to education,” Gross said. Gross said the program has since grown to include Morgan State University and Florida AM University, and announced two new steps for Project Acclaim. UNCF will open applications for a third cohort of institutions this year, and will launch the Project Acclaim Seed Grant, a new funding pathway offering up to $350,000 over two years to at least six additional schools over the next three years to help them adopt the program’s curriculum model and build their own student-managed funds. “Our ultimate goal is simple,” Gross said. “To build a pathway to asset management to every HBCU in the country.” Lomax, reflecting on his tenure in a roundtable conversation, returned to 2020 as the year that tested UNCF most. As the pandemic forced the organization to cancel a slate of events, Lomax said the staff braced for a shortfall against that year’s $80 million fundraising goal. “We kept everybody’s insurance, and we rolled up our sleeves and we got to work,” Lomax said, describing the decision to retain every employee while he took a 40% pay cut of his own. UNCF ultimately raised $250 million that year, more than three times its target. Lomax said the surge did not come from the organization’s largest donors alone. “They came from the people we send our letters to,” he said. “We raised three times the amount from them. We said something’s happening, and it was really from the bottom up, a groundswell of support.” As UNCF prepares for its next chapter, that same call landed in Stacey Abrams’s opening charge to the room, a reminder that the work belongs to more than any one leader or institution. Legacy, she said, is not inherited but built. “It is speaking up for HBCUs. It is investing in their leaders and investing in their futures,” Abrams said. “Together we will fight for HBCUs because that is how we fight for America.” The post UNCF LOOKS TO BRING IN NEW MINDS AT UNITE 2026 appeared first on The Atlanta Voice. ...read more read less