The Black Belt Community Foundation is less than a week from making the big announcement.

The BBCF is holding a press conference to reveal the organizations it will award grants to in an effort to promote young men of color in rural communities.

The event is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 7 at the Selma High Auditorium at 11 a.m.

“We are excited to now announce the first of this kind of initiative in our region and to launch it a place that we think is fitting,” BBCF President Felicia Jones said. “A lot of the work will impact the young men in that particular school and that surrounding.”

The money from the grants to be announced during the conference stem from a $415,000 Forward Promise Catalyst grant the BBCF received this fall.

Provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in partnership with Public Interest Projects, the grant was awarded on the condition that it must be used to invest in local partners working directly with young minority men.

BBCF raised an additional $105,000 to their grant thanks Auburn University, the Black Belt Commission, University of Alabama and several others.

“We have good partnerships,” Jones said. “We could have done it if it had not been for them.”

The Catalyst grant corresponds with Forward Promise initiative to improve the health and success of middle school and high school boys and young men.

The area philanthropies BBCF rewards the funds to will have to contribute their own matching dollars.

BBCF expects to choose about 10 partners, but the list of recipients has yet to be finalized, Jones said Wednesday.

The nonprofit group made sure to select recipients based on their impact as a philanthropy and relationship with BBCF, Jones said.

“Part of our strategy is to partner with those organizations that we have worked with previously that have a history in doing work with a specific emphasis and focus on young men and boys of color,” she said. “The second part is we are looking for organizations that actually have the ability to reach a lot of young men and boys that will actually help us show that what we are doing is working.”

For more information, call BBCF at 874-1126.