Philanthropist Ebonie Johnson Cooper was both proud and ashamed to write her latest check to a worthy cause.

“I am so embarrassed that I have not given a dime back to my school. Today I’m writing a check to A&T,” Johnson Cooper said.

“We should all be ashamed because we talk about being Aggies and we have a lot of pride but we haven’t turned that pride into dollars. It’s taken eight years to write a check to my school and today I’m holding myself accountable.”

Johnson Cooper graduated from N.C. A&T in 2005 with a degree in business administration. She works part time as a marketing writer but her passion is finding ways to help people, particularly the millennial generation, give back to their communities.

As a consultant, she works with nonprofit organizations to improve their messaging to attract new donors, especially diverse millennials. She started a blog, Friends of Ebonie, to help match her friends with charities and organizations that fit their interests.

“I’ve always been the go to person in my group of friends for people who wanted to give. I didn’t know we were considered millennials, they were just my friends and we wanted to give,” Johnson Cooper said.

The blog has since grown into a boutique marketing communication agency that provides insight, programming and resources to and about young black professionals and philanthropy.

“It’s important for us to have dialogue about what it means to be a minority in this area of philanthropy. As we continue to grow and expand we will focus more on workshops and civic engagement organizations,” she said.

In February, Johnson Cooper along with Friends of Ebonie staffers hosted a networking and panel discussion event, “Defining Young Black Philanthropy” at the National Council of Negro Women headquarters in Washington, D.C. In the past, she has hosted similar events during Congressional Black Caucus Week and in New York City

Her work with Friends of Ebonie is a part of Johnson Cooper’s life-long passion of giving back. It is her time at A&T that she credits with preparing her for her philanthropic work.

“I really attribute a lot of my ability to be a leader to being at A&T. I was a student leader there. A lot of the work I did on campaigns and speeches I had to write all prepared me for the opportunity to work with clients,” she said.

As a student, Johnson Cooper was Miss Freshman, vice president of her sophomore class, president of her junior class, second vice president of the Alpha Mu chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Inc. and a member of the A&T chapters of the American Marketing Association and Alpha Lambda Delta.

She also credits her professors for encouraging her to pursue her dreams. While all of them were supportive, it was the late Dr. Edna Johnson Ragins who gave her that extra boost to keep going when things were tough.

“When you think about teachers and professors, you think of those who make a difference in your life. You don’t get that at every school,” she said. “She was always supportive and so understanding. She was everything to me.”

After graduation, Johnson Cooper went on to work for a cable TV network. She left that job to try to “save the world.” She found out the hard way that the transition from the corporate sector to the nonprofit sector was not an easy one.

“The experience was not what I thought it would be at all but I learned that you can’t help someone if you can’t help yourself,” she said. “I’ve learned that you can still give back and make a difference without having to struggle.”

For more information about Ebonie Johnson Cooper and Friends of Ebonie, visit www.eboniejohnsoncooper.com.