United Negro College Fund
Categories: African Americans | African-American history
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The United Negro College Fund (UNCF), headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia is an American philanthropic organization with the mission of raising college tuition money for African-American students and general scholarship funds for 39 Historically Black colleges and universities. The UNCF was incorporated on April 25, 1944 by Frederick D. Patterson (president of what is now Tuskegee University), Mary McLeod Bethune, and others.
As of 2005, the UNCF is helping approximately 65,000 students at over 900 colleges and universities. About 60% of these students are the first in their families to attend college, and 62% have annual family incomes of less than $25,000. UNCF also administers over 450 named scholarships.
The UNCF's current president and chief executive officer is Michael Lomax.
Motto
Since 1972, the UNCF motto has been "A mind is a terrible thing to waste," and has become one of the more widely recognized slogans in advertising history. The motto has been used in award-winning UNCF ad campaigns and was created by Forest Long of the advertising agency Young and Rubicam.
It was once famously flubbed by then-U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle, who attempted to paraphrase it at a UNCF fundraiser as "What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is."