Manpower Development Corps (MDC) Inc. is a left-of-center think tank based in Durham, North Carolina. Created in 1967 to address issues of poverty and racial inequality in the rural South, MDC is an offshoot of the North Carolina Fund, an anti-poverty initiative developed in 1963 by then-North Carolina Gov. Terry Sanford (D). This organization was one of more than 400 selected to receive funding from the $3.8 billion pool of grant money pledged by philanthropist Mackenzie Scott-Bezos in 2021. 1
“State of the South” is a biennial report published by Manpower Development Corps on racial and social equity and economic developments in that region. While the reports emphasize that strides toward racial equity have been achieved since the civil rights movement of the 1960s and note that “the South … is no longer the ‘backward child’ of America,” these reports also highlight still-existing cultural and economic disparities along socio-economic and racial lines. 2
Passing Gear Philanthropy Institute
Passing Gear Philanthropy Institute is a collaborative project developed by Manpower Development Corps that organizes groups (styled “cohorts”) of non-profits to improve outcome efficiency in line with its partner mission statements. The initiative formed its first cohort in 2020, and by the year 2025 plans to complete the formation of 20-25 cohorts, each containing four to five member organizations. 3
Rural Community College Initiative/Vision to Action Africa
Rural Community College Initiative (RCCI), founded in 1994 and sustained by grants from the Ford Foundation, was a project designed to strategize methods to improve economic outcomes in (generally poor) rural areas through education. Among other strategies, RCCI sought to shift communities away from local, service-based economies towards those based on export of goods and tourism. RCCI also advocated decreased dependence on natural resources such as coal and timber, towards more intangible resources such as “intellectual [and] cultural” resources. 4
A spinoff of this program, Vision to Action Africa, was a 1998 collaboration between Manpower Development Corps , the Ford Foundation, and University of Namibia that attempted to develop a community college in that nation. 5
Achieving the Dream
MDC began as one of the managing/founding partners of the “Achieving the Dream” project in 2004, eventually rebranding it as its own non-profit in 2010. Initially conceived in collaboration between Lumina Foundation for Education and seven other organizations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Achieving the Dream focuses on gathering statistical, anecdotal, and formal survey data to inform education policy reforms. 67
Great Expectations
Manpower Development Corps partners with the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust on the Great Expectations project, which focuses on grants for early childhood education in the Forsyth County, New York area. The project included the development of the survey organizations Forsyth Family Voices and Early Childhood Services Systems Analysis, and the Family Friend and Neighbor Care study, which examined the landscape of daycare and education arrangements in that region. 8
Learning for Equity
Learning for Equity is a project spearheaded by Manpower Development Corps in conjunction with the Oak Foundation to examine the relationship between minority communities and prevalence of various learning disabilities such as dyslexia. 9
Leadership
John Simpkins, president of Manpower Development Corps , is also the vice president of Aspen Institute’s Global Leadership Network. Simpkins is the former general counsel of the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Obama administration. Prior to this, he was deputy general counsel in the Office of Management and Budget from 2013 to 2015. 10
To support MDC's efforts to improve educational outcomes for students furthest from opportunity with learning differences in North Carolina, the US.
$2,955,594
2021
Oak Foundation
To continue building a learning and action network among North Carolina-based not-for-profit organisations to advance education policy and practice improvements for students with learning differences who are furthest from opportunity. Based in Durham, North Carolina, MDC works to design, test, and scale strategies that work to bring equity and opportunity across the southern United States.
$2,743,580
2026
Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust
Programmatic funds for capacity building support to grassroots organizations in Eastern North Carolina
$2,221,134
2023
Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust
Programmatic funds for capacity building support to grassroots organizations in Eastern North Carolina
To enhance collaboration, information sharing, and advocacy for equitable public funding through a community of practice of leaders from five Southern states with the goal of advancing equitable, community-led solutions to pressing economic and social issues in the U.S. South.
This grant will support the continued partnership with MDC focusing on advancing social and economic success and integrating a 2Gen approach in their infrastructure of opportunity efforts in the South.
This grant will build on current efforts of the Human Services team’s partnership with MDC to support the agenda to center racial equity and racial justice to advance multigenerational family social and economic success across the South.
This grant will support the Human Services team’s partnership with MDC to advance racial equity and improve social and economic mobility in the South through systems change and a place-based approach.
ARPA PARTNERSHIP PROJECT: PROMOTING ACCOUNTABLE, EQUITABLE, AND COMMUNITY-DRIVEN INVESTMENTS OF PUBLIC FUNDS, INVESTING IN LEADERS OF COLOR INSTITUTE
$314,780
2025
Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust
Programmatic funds to provide ongoing support for Local Impact grantees and collaboratives in Forsyth County working to improve early childhood and economic mobility
$306,240
2023
Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust
Programmatic funds to support the capacity of a state-wide early childhood ecosystem
CAPACITY FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF THE AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN ACT (ARPA) ADVOCACY AND EQUITY COLLABORATIVE PROJECT
$200,000
2020
Oak Foundation
To identify, develop, and build a learning network among not-for-profit organisations in North Carolina, in partnership with the Learning Differences Programme. This is with the intention of advancing policy and practice reforms for students with learning differences who are furthest from opportunity. MDC works to equip Southern leaders, institutions and communities with the means to improve economic mobility and advance equity.
