A year ago, the Poise Foundation, the first community charity in the state begun and administered by black Americans, helped 28 youths to pay for Princeton Review SAT prep classes.

The students belonged to Crossroads, a foundation that helps black Americans get into private high schools and prepare for college.

Veronica Morgan-Lee, Crossroads director, said of the 28 children who took the test in the class of 2005, all went to college and they earned a total of $1.1 million in scholarships.

"That's the power of Poise," said Dr. Morgan-Lee. "These kids could not have afforded the tests by themselves and now they've gone on to school."

That's part of the mission and history of Poise -- empowering the black community through collective philanthropy.

Poise, now 25, celebrated Monday on what would have been its founder Bernard Jones' 75th birthday. With 200 supporters gathered for lunch at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, it pondered its future and paid homage to its past.

Poise was begun in December 1980 by Mr. Jones, a social activist who believed in self-help and felt that a formal charity created by black philanthropists could be a financial engine for social and economic change in the black community.

In 1982, Poise gave five grants to four groups for $17,000.

Over time, it has grown to 128 separate funds and $4.2 million in endowment funds. In that same period, Poise has provided more than $2.3 million to 355 nonprofits in direct grants and program support.

It began with mostly donor-directed individual gifts, which remain its chief fuel of support, but Poise increasingly is getting corporate gifts and foundation support.

"We can't stop here," said Col. Paul Patton, chair of Poise's board. "We've got to get to the future."

He said the organization needs more people to open funds, contribute to funds and assist in programs.

To get the word out, Poise is changing, too. It's building an advisory board of community leaders and plans focus groups on how to boost giving and how to strengthen after-school and mentoring programs.

Poise is necessary, said Col. Patton, because it brings a focused philanthropy to a community whose needs often go under the radar of other foundations.

Poise has aided the Sickle Cell Society, Youth Entrepreneurial Program, the Young Men's and Women's African Heritage Association and nearly 400 small and similar grass-roots groups since its founding.

Col. Patton said Mr. Jones picked him "off the street" when he was 15 and encouraged him to graduate from Fifth Avenue High School in 1960. From there, he studied electrical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh and made a career in the Air Force. Mr. Jones, he said, has changed all kinds of people as Poise went about changing Pittsburgh.

One of the first people to sign on with Poise was Robert Lavelle, owner of Dwelling House Savings and Loan in the Hill District and a friend of Mr. Jones.

In the 1980s, he opened a scholarship fund to support his friend's foundation.

"It was just so unusual what [Mr. Jones] wanted to do," said Mr. Lavelle, "I had to be a part of it and offer kids a chance at education."

Like other black charitable traditions, Poise has its roots in the informal social networks that included secret societies and occupational organizations.

But the giant of African American philanthropy was the black church and experts say that $9 out of every $10 in black charity goes through the church.

Poise wants to leverage those sources today, said Mark Lewis, executive director, but it also wants to reach higher and be a tool for business creation and home ownership, which it believes help people build wealth.

"For people to progress, to dream and achieve, they need the resources necessary to execute the plan," said Mr. Lewis. "Unless you own and control wealth, you can't control your destination."