Another unusual project is the Digital Heritage Initiative which provides computer education and skills to inner city youth. This initiative led to the African Male Educational program, a mentoring program for boys ages eight to thirteen that is designed to enhance their social, academic, and leadership skills. The Iota Youth Alliance allows individual chapters to craft programs that address the concerns of youth in their communities. The fraternity also runs a Black College Tour which takes inner city high school students to historically black colleges and universities in hopes that they will eventually attend college. The foundation has contributed over $250,000 towards grants, aid, and services in high poverty neighborhoods. The fraternity also manages other programs such as the National Iota Foundation, a clearing house for funding inner city development programs. This project seeks to reclaim the value of a father as a mentor, role model, and supporter of the emotional state of the child. One program, the Developing Better Fatherhood Project, is an initiative designed to encourage fathers to remain married and support their children despite their poverty. The fraternity also takes pride in its national programs which focus on the disenfranchised.

Instead they celebrate the individuality of each member. Iota Phi Theta Fraternity has as a guiding principle the refusal to have its members bind themselves to a defined fraternal image.

Congressman Bobby Rush former Good Morning America weatherman Spencer Christian television actor Terrence “T.C.” Carson National Basketball Association Hall-of-Famers, Elvin Hayes and Calvin Murphy and U.S. Fraternity members include former Black Panther and current U.S.

Today the fraternity has approximately 35,000 members in 270 chapters in the United States, the Bahamas, and South Korea. Their ideas were incorporated into the fraternity motto, “Building a Tradition, Not Resting Upon One.” They wanted a support network but did not have the time, resources, or inclination to follow the patterns of the older fraternities and sororities. Established by twelve men who were active in the local civil rights movement, early Iota members differed from the members of other black Greek-letter organizations in that they were mostly non-traditional students–older students, military veterans, and men with wives and children. (Iota), the most recently formed black Greek-letter organization, was founded on Septemon the campus of Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Iota phi theta 50th