A new partnership with the Philadelphia-based nonprofit Reinvestment Fund helped Edward Water College eliminate its years-old budget deficit.
“After many successive years of fiscal challenge the Reinvestment Fund’s investment in Edward Waters is a defining moment,” Edward Waters President A. Zachary Faison Jr. said in a news release.
“We are sincerely grateful for Reinvestment Fund’s partnership and their tangible demonstration of confidence in the continuing upward moving trajectory of EWC,” he said.
Through the partnership, the college completed the fiscal year ended June 30 with its first net cash surplus in more than a decade.
The largest portion of operating funds for historically black colleges and universities like EWC is from federal and state resources, which declined significantly between 2003 and 2015.
Federal funding for private historically black colleges declined 42% during that period, according to the release.
The Reinvestment Fund’s investment will augment EWC's $1.8 million endowment to give the college long-term affordable financing and position it to institute a capital improvement campaign to upgrade its campus learning and living facilities.