Beginning in 2014, the Historic Black Theological Schools began an assessment, testing of gifts and relationships, which validated more than two centuries of contributions to the American Society. Hood Theological Seminary, Payne Theological Seminary, Shaw School of Divinity, Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology, the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC), Howard University School of Divinity, representative of the Black Baptist and Methodist Traditions, joined by Friends of the Black Church incorporated in 2024- and became an IRS designated 501 (c)(3) Supporting Organization- The Gift Collaborative whose mission  is to reawaken, reinvigorate and relate the Academy and the Church to enhance and serve the Black community with lens of faith exhibited in practice and service.

The Gift Collaborative is a place of strategic actions establishing pathways to address inequities in the health of Black American, build coalitions for justice, advance institutional viability, preparation of practitioners, and to address the decline of younger generations in the church. The Gift Collaborative leads with the words of Howard Thurman "Let us now for forth to save the land. For this is why we were born"