Message from the Chair

Friends,

Our work at the John M. Belk Endowment is about one thing: economic opportunity. 

We seek to support pathways into the middle class, and ultimately, ensure our state is one where anyone can access post-secondary education to get better skills and a better job. We believe expanding these types of opportunities has a dramatic effect on North Carolina’s workforce competitiveness and enables our state to catalyze thriving homegrown businesses, while being a destination for employers from around the world.   

The Belk Endowment has doubled down on efforts that elevate our state’s community colleges, expand opportunity for adult learners, build clear pathways for accessing financial aid, and ensure North Carolina is on track to achieve its 2030 educational attainment goal. 

We do this work seeking to constantly “go and see”, visiting our campuses exhaustively to see the realities of college access and success firsthand. We never take for granted what we learn from these visits, and we seek to weave these perspectives into the partnerships in which we are engaged. Most of all, we pursue relationship and trust-based philanthropy that doesn’t seek to hit a quota or fill in a line on a spreadsheet- we believe meaningful impact really can be achieved if it only reaches one student. 

The stakes for this work are very high, but we welcome the challenge and relish the opportunity to be active supporters of those on the front lines of serving students.

Keep Pounding!

MC Belk Pilon
President & Board Chair