Raleigh, NC — The Dudley Flood Center for Educational Opportunity is proud to announce the receipt of a combined $525,000 in grant funding over three years from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the Conway/Holderness Family Fund. This catalytic and sustaining investment represents a powerful vote of confidence in the Center’s continued expansion of racial equity work, its mission, operations, and the students and communities it serves every day.
At a time when education systems and equity-centered work across the country face increasing challenges and constraints, this support ensures the Dudley Flood Center can continue to operate with strength, clarity, and purpose. These multi-year commitments provide not only critical financial resources, but also stability allowing the Center to continue its recovery from funding loss, deepen its programming, sustain its team, and remain focused on long-term impact rather than short-term survival.
“Sustained partnership like this allows us to do more than maintain our work, it allows us to strengthen it,” said Deanna Townsend-Smith, Sr. Director of the Dudley Flood Center. “Because of this support, we can focus on delivering programs with care and consistency, ultimately impacting students and educators across the communities we serve.”
The Dudley Flood Center works to expand educational opportunity through research, professional learning, strategic support, and convening, serving as a hub for leaders and organizations committed to creating more just and effective education systems. The Center’s work is grounded in the legacy of Dr. Dudley Flood, a pioneering civil rights leader, educator, and policy architect whose lifelong commitment to fairness and access continues to guide the organization’s vision.
“In this moment, honoring Dr. Flood’s legacy requires more than reflection; it requires action,” Townsend-Smith added. “This funding allows us to continue that work with integrity and resolve, even as equity-focused efforts like the Flood Center are increasingly threatened, misunderstood, defunded, or not resourced. It affirms that this work matters, and that it must continue.”
The Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the Conway/Holderness Family Fund have been long-standing partners in advancing opportunity, innovation, and community-rooted solutions. Their combined investment will support core operations as well as programming that directly serves educators and students across North Carolina and beyond, ensuring the Dudley Flood Center remains responsive, resilient, and impactful over the next three years.
As the Center looks ahead, this partnership reinforces a shared commitment to sustained change, thoughtful leadership, and the belief that students deserve systems designed to support their full potential. The Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the Conway/Holderness Family Fund have demonstrated leadership in exploring and participating in collaborative funding models that prioritize and sustain racial equity initiatives and practitioners while courageously encouraging other funders and philanthropic partners to support equity-focused efforts across NC. For more information about the Dudley Flood Center for Educational Opportunity and its work, visit https://floodcenter.org/.
