Echoing Green, a global social venture fund based in New York City, has released a report reflecting on nearly a decade of investment in Black leaders and communities through the\u00a0Black Male Achievement (BMA) Fellowship\u00a0program\u2014and calling for expanded long-term funding.<\/p>

The report,\u00a0Black Voices, Black Spaces: The Power of Black Innovation\u00a0(30 pages, PDF) explores the philanthropic dynamics affecting Black leaders and reflects on lessons learned for the social entrepreneurship field with respect to funding and supporting Black innovation and community impact. Between 2012 and when the program\u00a0sunset in 2020, Echoing Green invested more than $6 million in 90 BMA fellows across the United States\u2014a first-of-its-kind initiative focused on social entrepreneurs working to effect systemic change for Black men and boys. In turn, fellows raised nearly $65 million in additional support during their active fellowships, instigating large-scale change in the areas of climate justice, education, economic opportunity, social justice, racial equity, and civil and human rights.<\/p>

The report emphasizes the need for expanded long-term funding of Black communities and Black leaders and programming in support of Black innovators and social entrepreneurs. \u201cBlack leaders have always been here\u2014fueled by ingenuity, creativity, and joy as we design solutions with and for our communities,\u201d said Derick Pearson, founder of the Center for Black Innovation and a 2017 BMA fellow. \u201cIt is time that philanthropy and influencers of funding strategies build enduring infrastructure that meaningfully honors Black innovation and life by directing significant resources, capital, networks, and policies to Black communities so our innovation can thrive.\u201d<\/p>

Read the full article about funding Black communities at Philanthropy News Digest.

If you are suffering with chronic pain, diabetes, heart problems or any other condition, you want to be confident that your doctor will offer you an effective treatment. You certainly don\u2019t want to waste time or money on something that won\u2019t work, or take something that could do you harm.<\/p>

The best source of information to guide treatment is medical research. But how do you know when that information is reliable and evidence-based? And how can you tell the difference between shoddy research findings and those that have merit?<\/p>

There\u2019s a long journey to the publication of research findings. Scientists design experiments and studies to investigate questions about treatment or prevention, and follow certain scientific principles and standards. Then the finding is submitted for publication in a research journal. Editors and other people in the researchers\u2019 field, called peer-reviewers, make suggestions to improve the research. When the study is deemed acceptable, it is published as a research journal article.<\/p>

But a lot can go wrong on this long journey that could make a research journal article unreliable. And peer review is not designed to catch fake or misleading data. Unreliable scientific studies can be hard to spot \u2013 whether by reviewers or the general public \u2013 but by asking the right questions, it can be done.<\/p>