Texas Christian university receives largest-ever gift to a private HBCU

(RNS) — Huston-Tillotson University, a Christian school in Austin, Texas, marked its 150th anniversary with an announcement that it received a $150 million gift — the largest-ever single donation to a private historically Black college or university — from a Texas foundation.

Ross Moody, a trustee of the Texas-based Moody Foundation, made the surprise announcement during the university’s fall convocation on Thursday (Sept. 18), providing a watershed moment for the school founded in 1875. 

“This is not only a milestone for this university — it is also the single largest gift in the 80-year history of the Moody Foundation,” he said. “This gift is for innovative scholarships and for a series of endowments because when students are lifted up, the entire university, the entire community, are lifted with them. Together, we all rise.”

The foundation’s donation had been a secret for months, HT President Melva K. Wallace told the students, faculty and dignitaries gathered for the ceremony, after the audience stood, applauded and cheered.

But Moody and his daughter Elle, a foundation senior vice president, surprised her when they announced the gift was for $150 million. They had previously told her it would be $130 million.

“Glory to God,” she exclaimed, before citing a New Testament verse. “I had got myself ready to hear $130 million, which is hard to get yourself ready to hear, but to have another surprise, Second Corinthians 9:11 says, ‘You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion.’”

Ross Moody, from left, Elle Moody and HT President Melva K. Wallace during the announcement of a $150 million gift to Huston-Tillotson University during the university’s fall convocation on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025, in Austin, Texas. (Video screen grab)

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Huston-Tillotson, which has 1,056 students enrolled for the fall semester, is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and the United Church of Christ. It received its first donation from Moody Foundation in 1968.

Moody Foundation, not related to the Moody Bible Society or Moody Radio, pledged in 2023 to donate $1 billion for Texas education by 2035. The private foundation based in Galveston was founded in 1942 to invest in charitable projects. Past recipients of its funding include Christian higher education institutions and churches, along with nonprofits focused on the arts, health and social services.

In 2019, it donated $100 million to Southern Methodist University in University Park, Texas, to fund the Moody School of Graduate and Advanced Studies. In 2021, it gave $5 million to Abilene Christian University in Texas for renovations to its Moody Coliseum.