Beyoncé, a singer, actress, songwriter, filmmaker, and record producer, partnered with the NAACP to donate $1 million to small black-owned businesses that are in communities negatively affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
The 39-year-old will donate funds through her BeyGOOD foundation’s Black-Owned Small Business Impact Fund.
“Proud to announce $1M in additional funds from Beyoncé…” the post on BeyGOOD’s Instagram page said Sept. 2.
According to Harper’s Bazaar, potential applicants for the money have to provide figure estimates on how much property damage they have or how much it will cost to replace damages.
Black Americans disproportionately work in essential roles where they “do not have the luxury of working from home,” Knowles said during the “One World: Together at Home” concert on April 18.
The businesses Knowles and the NAACP are specifically supposed to donate money to have to be located in “Houston, Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, or Minneapolis,” per Harper’s Bazaar.
Since this is “round two of funding,” there’s a possibility for future donations.
People can go to the NAACP website to donate. The funding is “coming soon.”
“NAACP Empowerment Programs is delighted to administer a meaningful program in partnership with BeyGOOD’s Black-Owned Small Business Impact Fund,” NAACP said.
BeyGOOD was founded in 2013 to promote positive change.
The foundation hoped to “inspire people to be kind, to be charitable and to #BeyGood to themselves, to others, to the community, and to our world,” the NAACP said.
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, better known as Beyoncé or “Queen Bey,” has won 24 Grammy awards and recently released her film, “Black is King” with Disney. She is a mother of three and is a Houston native.
Knowles is no stranger to philanthropy. Earlier this summer, she gave $10,000 grants to small black-owned businesses.
These small black businesses were “affected by the pandemic and the recent protests against racism and police brutality,” Harper’s Bazaar reported.
“The pandemic and outpours for justice throughout the Black community and across the country has been felt in every imaginable area of our lives…” the NAACP said, according to CBS 6 News.
The announcement about the round-one donation was made on BeyGOOD’s Instagram page July 9 and there were 20 recipients, including Lee Lee’s Bakery and Leslie Andrews Photography.
“The challenges of Black business owners navigating in the climate cannot be understated,” the NAACP said, according to Complex.
The Foundation for AIDS Research found that 22% of U.S. counties are disproportionately black and that “54% of COVID-19 cases & 58% of deaths” are from these counties.
Previously, Knowles partnered with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to donate $6 million for organizations that provided services for mental wellness and she created the 2020 BeyGOOD Global Citizen Fellows program that was intended to help African Americans thrive.
Courtesy of Beyoncé’s Instagram 
Courtesy of Beyoncé’s Instagram
Moreover, the singer posted about the importance of voting by trying to get people to register.
Programs that BeyGOOD have supported helped the U.S., South America, the Caribbean, etc.
“Please protect yourselves. We are one family, and we need you,” Knowles said.
