The North Carolina Fund, 1960-1972

Contains correspondence, memoranda, grant applications, project proposals, minutes, reports, financial documents, transcripts, publicity materials, administrative documents, publications, and newspaper clippings pertaining to the North Carolina Fund. The North Carolina Fund was a statewide antipoverty nonprofit corporation that operated from 1963 to 1968. In June of 1963, Governor Sanford established the North Carolina Fund with the goal of studying problems associated with poverty and supporting manpower development, community action, and improving education and economic opportunities for North Carolinians. The Fund received grant money and other forms for funding from the Ford Foundation; the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation; the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation; the U.S. Dept. of Labor; the U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare; the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development; and the Office of Economic Opportunity. The eleven initial projects funded were as follows: WAMY Community Action involving Watauga, Avery, Mitchell, and Yancey counties, the Opportunity Corporation in Buncombe County and Asheville, the Macon Program for Progress, the Choanoke Area Development Association (CADA) involving Northampton, Halifax, Herford, and Bertie Counties, the Nash-Edgecombe Economic Development, Operation Progress in Craven County, the Tri- County Community Action in Richmond, Scotland, and Robeson counties, the Charlotte Area Fund, the Salisbury-Rowan Community Service Council, the Experiment in Self-Reliance in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, and Durham's Operation Breakthrough. While these early Community Action Projects (CAPs) focused on economic development within individual North Carolina communities, later projects, such as the North Carolina Manpower Development Corporation (MDC), served communities across the state. Murchison was a member of this corporation and served from 1963 to 1971. Materials in this series date from 1960 to 1972.