UNCF’s Masked Ball Repeats a $4 Million Atlanta Night

UNCF’s Atlanta Mayor’s Masked Ball raised $4 million on Dec. 20, 2025, matching the 41st ball a year earlier. The black-tie gala at the Signia Hotel, hosted by Mayor Andre Dickens, posted the same total it posted after Dec. 21, 2024.

Actor Anthony Anderson, a Howard University alumnus, emceed both nights. The repeated haul lands as Dr. Michael L. Lomax, UNCF president and CEO since 2004, is due to leave in June 2027, and as the 43rd ball is already on the books for December 19, 2026.

Two Nights Produced the Same $4 Million

UNCF said the 42nd annual Atlanta Mayor’s Masked Ball raised $4 million on Dec. 20, 2025, at the Signia Hotel, with Dickens and Lomax as hosts. Proceeds, the fund said, go to scholarships and to operating help for UNCF-member colleges. The 41st ball, on Dec. 21, 2024, at the same hotel, was also announced at $4 million, with Anderson on the microphone and with Big Boi and Charlie Wilson on the bill, and with more than 2,000 guests in the room.

A year before that climb, UNCF told donors the 2023 Atlanta night had raised $3 million. The next two Decembers did not move the headline.

THE ATLANTA HAUL

On the 42nd night, En Vogue played the room and Dr. David A. Thomas, president emeritus of Morehouse College, received the Billye Suber Aaron MASKED Award. Guests named by UNCF included the ball’s co-founders, Billye Suber Aaron and Ambassador Andrew Young, with Carolyn Young; Sen. Raphael Warnock; Rep. Sanford Bishop; Rep. Nikema Williams; former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms; former Mayor Bill Campbell; and DeKalb County CEO Lorraine Cochran Johnson. That roll call is how Atlanta still packs a scholarship dinner: the mayor’s office, the congressional seats, the old mayors, and the HBCU presidents share a floor with the companies that buy the title.

The City of Atlanta called the 42nd night a group project and put the $4 million figure on its own account.

Atlanta, here is a look back at the 42nd UNCF Mayor’s Masked Ball. Together, our community raised more than $4 million to support scholarships and expand access to education. When everyone plays a part, Atlanta moves forward because Atlanta is a group project. pic.twitter.com/lHJtHx5GsU

— City of Atlanta, GA (@CityofAtlanta) December 23, 2025

A night this visible always draws a charge that too little of the take reaches a bursar. UNCF’s own fiscal 2025 letter is the books-level answer to that complaint, and it does not rest on one Saturday in December.

Atlanta Still Sells the Night in Six Tiers

Norfolk Southern was title sponsor of the 42nd ball. Presenting sponsors were Chick-fil-A, The Coca-Cola Company, Delta Air Lines, Google, The Home Depot, and UPS. Coca-Cola has long been listed as a founding sponsor of the Atlanta night, which is the point of the underwriting: the same local names buy the same December inventory.

The 2026 sponsorship board makes the inventory plain. A title sits at $250,000 and buys 20 program tickets, 10 VIP red-carpet tickets with the mayor and the UNCF president, a 60-second speaking slot, and category exclusivity. A presenting package is $100,000. The ladder then drops through marquis, royal court, masked court, and mayor’s court. A single Scholar’s Ticket is $1,000.

SPONSOR PACKAGES FOR DECEMBER

• Title sponsor: $250,000, with 20 ball tickets, 10 VIP tickets, a speaking slot, and category exclusivity.
• Presenting sponsor: $100,000, with 18 ball tickets, 4 VIP tickets, and a one-minute video message.
• Marquis sponsor: $50,000, with 16 ball tickets and 2 VIP tickets.
• Mayor’s Royal Court: $25,000, with 14 ball tickets and 2 VIP tickets.
• Mayor’s Masked Court: $15,000, with 12 ball tickets.
• The Mayor’s Court: $10,000, with 10 ball tickets.
• Scholar’s Ticket: $1,000 for one seat at the program.

Those prices explain how a room of more than 2,000 people can close at $4 million without every guest writing a huge personal check. Tables, not masks, carry the night. The 2024 sponsorship booklet had listed a $2 million goal for the 41st ball; the announced total that December was twice that figure, and the 42nd then matched the new mark instead of raising it.

Billye Aaron and Andrew Young Started This in 1983

UNCF dates the Atlanta Mayor’s Masked Ball to 1983, when Billye Suber Aaron and then-Mayor Andrew Young created an end-of-year gala for historically Black colleges. The 41st edition closed UNCF’s 80th-anniversary year. The 42nd kept the masks, the Signia, and the mayor as host. Dickens, Atlanta’s 61st mayor, has now put his name on several of these Decembers in a row.

THE BALL’S OWN CALENDAR

1. 1983: Billye Suber Aaron and Andrew Young establish the Atlanta Mayor’s Masked Ball as a UNCF fundraiser.
2. December 2023: UNCF later tells donors the Atlanta night raised $3 million.
3. Dec. 21, 2024: The 41st ball at the Signia Hotel is announced at $4 million, with Anderson, Big Boi, and Charlie Wilson.
4. Dec. 20, 2025: The 42nd ball at the Signia Hotel is announced at $4 million, with Anderson and En Vogue.
5. July 20, 2026: UNCF’s board, chaired by Milton H. Jones Jr., says Lomax will step down in June 2027.
6. Dec. 19, 2026: The 43rd ball is listed at 6 p.m. at the Signia by Hilton Atlanta.

Justine Boyd, UNCF’s assistant vice president for regional development in Atlanta, is the local producer on the event page and the person UNCF quotes when it wants to say the city showed up. After the 42nd night she did not talk about a record. She talked about a habit.

Atlanta shows up for our students and we’re grateful for the incredible support that makes this an unforgettable evening of celebration and impact.

Justine Boyd, UNCF assistant vice president, after the 42nd Mayor’s Masked Ball

That is the honest pitch. The ball works because Atlanta’s political class and its corporate headquarters still treat HBCU scholarships as civic furniture. The second night at $4 million is what that furniture looks like when it stops being moved.

What the $4 Million Funds

UNCF says the Atlanta proceeds support student scholarships and operating help for member colleges. In fiscal 2025 the fund told donors it put $46.8 million in cash onto those campuses, including $19.5 million unrestricted and $27.3 million in restricted scholarships, emergency aid, and capacity programs, which means the December gala is one visible night inside a much larger pass-through.

UNCF, founded in 1944, says it has raised more than $6 billion and helped over 550,000 students earn degrees. Each year it says it awards more than 13,000 scholarships totaling more than $64 million, across more than 600 U.S. colleges, including its member HBCUs. In fiscal 2025, 10,885 students received scholarships. Against that annual scholarship book, $4 million is about 6 percent.

UNCF’S BOOKS BESIDE ONE NIGHT

• $46.8 million: Cash UNCF says it sent to member schools in fiscal 2025.
• $64 million: More than this amount in scholarships UNCF says it awards in a year.
• $13.6 million: Amount UNCF says its March Madness drive raised, more than three times the Atlanta ball.
• $70 million: MacKenzie Scott’s 2025 gift to UNCF, more than 17 times the Atlanta ball.

The directors’ letter for fiscal 2025 put other figures beside those gifts. UNCF said it had raised more than $1.3 billion since 2020, that its endowment stood at $467 million with about $500 million expected by the close of that fiscal year, and that a $1 billion capital campaign had reached 69.5 percent of goal, or $695 million. Direct mail and online giving brought in $14.1 million from more than 148,000 individual donors. A Walk for Education raised $2 million across 19 cities. Robert Kraft gave $1 million. Adage Capital Management with Elizabeth and Phill Gross gave $10 million for Project ACCLAIM at Morehouse and Howard.

Scott’s wire, which Lomax called a once-in-a-generation chance to build lasting assets, went to strengthening member HBCUs and to the same $1 billion campaign. The Atlanta ball does not compete with that check. It sits far below it, and below UNCF’s own basketball fundraiser, which is the cleaner way to read $4 million: a strong local night, not the fund’s center of gravity.

UNCF also publishes a graduation claim that is the practical case for the scholarships the ball helps buy. African American UNCF scholars, it says, finish at a 70 percent six-year rate, more than 1.5 times the 46 percent six-year rate for all African American college students and above the 65 percent six-year rate for all U.S. students. The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce puts a bachelor’s degree at worth $2.8 million over a lifetime on average. Census figures for 2024 put the median income of $132,700 for households headed by someone with a bachelor’s degree or higher, more than double the $58,410 median for households headed by a high-school graduate.

UNCF’s 2024 HBCU impact study, cited again in the fiscal 2025 letter, said the nation’s 101 HBCUs generate $16.5 billion in economic activity and 136,000 jobs. If those campuses were a company, the letter said, they would rank among the top 50 of the Fortune 500 in job creation. The ball does not fund that output. It sells tickets against it.

On its own site UNCF cites a cost ratio of 22 percent of total expenses, 9 percent for administration and 13 percent for fundraising. That is the ratio it offers people who think a masquerade is a skim. The ratio does not make $4 million large. It makes the path from a $250,000 title table to a student account less mysterious than a dress-circle rumor.

Michael Lomax Plans to Leave in June 2027

Lomax has led UNCF since 2004. In July 2026, board chair Milton H. Jones Jr. said he will conclude the presidency in June 2027, stay engaged through that date to help launch a 2030 plan and push the $1 billion campaign, and then advise a successor. In May 2026, accepting an honorary doctorate from Columbia, Lomax said he would wind down his UNCF work and return to Morehouse, his alma mater, in the summer of 2027.

He is still the named UNCF host on the 43rd ball page, so December 19 is on his remaining calendar. After the 42nd night he did not talk about a plateau. He talked about keeping students in school.

Thanks to the generous support and commitment of our donors, we are moving forward as we help students go to and through college and on to successful careers.

Dr. Michael L. Lomax, UNCF president and CEO, after the 42nd Mayor’s Masked Ball

The succession is the second-order fact the $4 million headline does not carry. The person who spent two decades turning UNCF into a national solicitor, and who used nights like Atlanta’s to keep corporate tables in the room, has a leave date. The ball he will host in December is priced like the last two. The search for the next president is already open. Whoever gets that job inherits a local gala that can fill the Signia and can close at $4 million, and inherits the question of whether that number is a floor or a lid.

When Is the 43rd UNCF Masked Ball?

The 43rd Annual UNCF Atlanta Mayor’s Masked Ball is listed for December 19, 2026, at 6 p.m. at the Signia by Hilton Atlanta, 159 Northside Drive NW, with a general reception and a private VIP carpet at 6 and the ball at 7. Dickens is listed as host. Lomax is listed as president and CEO. Boyd is the event contact.

UNCF Atlanta posted a recap of the 42nd night, the last full dress rehearsal on file before that December.

The 2026 page still sells elegance, fashion, and Better Futures. It does not publish a new goal. The figure a third straight December has to live with is $4 million, announced after the 41st ball and announced again after the 42nd. The title slot is still priced at $250,000. The Scholar’s Ticket is still $1,000. The mayor is still on the invitation.

On December 19 the masks go back on at the Signia, Lomax still in the program, the last two nights both closed at $4 million, and the next total unwritten.