Brenda Rayford

Residence: Detroit
Occupation: Executive director of the Black United Fund
Why honored:For helping to educate, enrich and train Metro Detroit families in need.

“Every time the organization has a new success, I become energized. I see this as my calling.” -- Brenda Rayford

   

She stands tall in her efforts to enrich, shape and educate others

renda Rayford has always fought for what she believes in. As a young girl in Dayton, Ohio, she used her limited influence to urge adult family members to register to vote. As a militant college student, she participated in protests against restaurants that discriminated against minorities.

    And for the last 30 years, she’s used her clout as a leading Detroit human-rights activist and as executive director of the nonprofit Black United Fund to combat everything from domestic abuse to homelessness.

    The Black United Fund, the first organization to establish a payroll deduction plan for black charities in Michigan, raised more than $1 million last year for 66 nonprofit organizations and community-based programs in southeastern Michigan.

    “I feel good when I get up in the morning and I can’t wait to get to work because I genuinely like what I do,” says Rayford, who describes herself as a baby boomer.

    “Every time the organization has a new success, I become energized. I see this as my calling.”

    Rayford began her crusade as a graduate student at Wayne State University, working as an intern for four years at the fund’s predecessor, Black Causes.

    Black Causes, which also raised funds for nonprofit organizations, changed its name to Black United Fund in 1974 when Rayford became executive director. The organization is an affiliate of the National Black United Fund in Newark, N.J., which responds to the needs of 22 states across the country by soliciting payroll deductions.

    Recipients of money from the fund include education, youth enrichment, family development and job training programs. Milton Fairweather, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Detroit’s Hutchinson Middle School, is among those to benefit. He and about 65 other Hutchinson students competed in mathematics, language arts and social studies games this year because of the organization’s grants.

    “It was exciting to meet kids from all over,” he says. “It’s good they gave us the money because we were able to go on trips without having to pay a lot of money. What I like most about academic games is that I get to meet other people, and it improves my skills.”

    The effectiveness of the fund in reaching across the community is largely due to Rayford’s leadership, says the fund’s chairwoman, Wilma Rae-Bledsoe.

    “She was working hard for this organization before there were really enough resources for her to do so,” says Rae-Bledsoe, whose husband, William Bledsoe, was the first chairman of the fund’s board.

    “She’s a warm and caring person who’s deeply committed to the agency’s objective. She’s very motivated and has the capacity to inspire the people she works with.”

    Motivation, Rayford says, comes easily to her.

    “I’m thrilled to help mold, shape and educate,” she says. “I just want to do right by humanity.”

    — Kortney Stringer