Black Philanthropy Month gives us a moment to pause and name something that too often goes unspoken: Black communities have always been philanthropic. Long before “philanthropy” was a line item in an estate plan or a tax strategy, it was a mutual aid society, a church collection plate, a sorority scholarship fund, a neighbor covering another neighbor’s rent. Dr. Jacqueline Copeland-Carson helped formalize that recognition when she founded Black Philanthropy Month in 2011, and in the years since, it’s grown into a global celebration of Black giving in all its forms, individual, institutional, formal, informal, and everything in between.