CoBank Donor Advised Fund partners with Thurgood Marshall College Fund

The CoBank Agriculture Scholarship offered through the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) will be funded with $100,000 from the CDF administered CoBank Donor Advised Fund. Established in 2020, the scholarship provides financial assistance to students attending one of TMCF's member schools that include 47 publicly supported Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and is open to students majoring in agriculture or ag-related fields.

Established in 1987, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) is the nation's largest organization exclusively representing the Black college community. TMCF member-schools include the publicly supported HBCUs and predominately Black Institutions.

"By promoting agriculture education, we are helping to support the future of this critical industry. Through the CoBank Agriculture Scholarship and our partnership with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, we are actively promoting diversity and inclusion in agriculture and providing opportunities for historically underserved students and communities," said Sherry Johnson, Director, Corporate Social Responsibility, CoBank.

The CDF Board also approved a multi-year grant totaling $250,000 from the CoBank Fund to Kansas State University Foundation in support of the Arthur Capper Cooperative Center (ACCC). The funding builds on previous CoBank support for the work of the ACCC. This grant will provide funding for CoBank's Outstanding Student Scholarship, support Kansas State University's Financial Benchmarking Tool for Cooperatives, provide funding for cooperative research projects, and help fund ACCC's Cooperative Director Skills Gap Analysis project.

The CoBank University Giving Fund is a donor advised fund administered by the Cooperative Development Foundation that provides grants and contributions to university programs that support research, development or coursework that strengthen U.S. agriculture, cooperatives, agribusiness and rural infrastructure.