A Black nonprofit organization in Kentucky received a six-figure donation after a white donor discovered their great-grandfather owned formerly enslaved people.

The organization, Change Today, Change Tomorrow (CTCT) was founded in Sept. 2019 and has served over 100,000 marginalized Louisville residents, according to its website. 

"It is a blessing for us but also definitely owed," the nonprofit's founder and executive director, Taylor Ryan, said Monday afternoon during a press conference, the Courier-Journal reported. 

According to CTCT, the donor, who chooses to remain anonymous, came across inheritance money on their 25th birthday and delved into their family’s history to find out the origins. 

"They investigated their family history to find out their great-grandfather had enslaved six individuals in Bourbon [County], Ky.," Nannie Grace Croney, deputy director of CTCT said as the nonprofit announced the donation, NPR reports. 

The organization also released a statement from the donor, who found that their relative didn't keep records of the formerly enslaved people's names. 

"He inflicted the trauma and violence of slavery on six people for his own monetary gain and did not even bother to record their names. Although no amount of money could ever right that wrong, their descendants deserve repayment for what was taken," the statement read. 

Croney noted that because the donor is "aware of how hoarding wealth is a huge contributing factor of inequity in this country, they decided that they should give most of it away."

Initially, the group thought they were being pranked when they were contacted about the donation. Then, the money was wired to them. 

"So the initial emotion was like, 'Oh this isn't real,' but once it was real, we knew that we had to act on it,” Croney said. “We knew that as disruptors and changemakers, we have to challenge other corporations, foundations and individuals to really pay reparations back."

The payment will undoubtedly help support CTCT’s efforts as they originally launched to help secure school supplies for teachers, but have grown exponentially over the last two years. Now, they have programs geared towards education, food justice and public health. Some of their outreach measures include providing hot meals for students, menstruation products and food deliveries with fresh produce from a Black-owned farm. 

And as conversations around reparations continue to permeate the national consciousness, the donor is calling on other white people to do what it takes to rectify the wrongdoings of their ancestors.

"As white people we all unfairly benefit from racism," the donor said, according to the nonprofit. "We have to be willing to part with what was stolen, and do so without expectations of praise or control over how the money will be spent.”

Ryan said the nonprofit, which has never received a reparations payment before, intends to put 40% of the money toward supporting the organization's staff, while another 40% will go toward sustaining their community outreach efforts and 20% will be put into reserve. 

"We don't have the luxury to kind of just sit on it, so it's literally money that's going to go right back into the community,” Andreana Bridges, an administrative associate at the nonprofit, told NPR.

Croney said that she’s hopeful that her organization is one of many that will continue to see reparations pouring in. 

"I think that this is just the start. I thank this donor for beginning this cycle that is going to continue to lead to more reparations," she said on Monday. "But also, with this reparations coming in, we're going to continue to do the work and continue to show up…"

In 2018, an anonymous donor gave $200,000 to the Denver-based nonprofit Soul2Soul Sisters. The donor was a graduate student who had learned her ancestors owned formerly enslaved people.

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