Scotts July 2020 giving could not have come at a better time for Accion Opportunity Fund, a small business loan provider in California focusing on women and Black-owned businesses. It is with gratitude and irrepressible smiles that the sisterhood of Urgent Action Funds announces our collective receipt of MacKenzie Scott's generous, transformative, and indeed "human and soft" gift of $20 million.. All the words we could possibly use would be an understatement of the impact that this gift will have on the Urgent Action Funds. While a windfall grant can boost organizational legitimacy, organizations and donors must intentionally craft a strategic message around organizational impact and priorities. Shes not putting herself in the drivers seat., MacKenzie Scott Gives Away Another $2.74 Billion Even as Her Wealth Grows, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/15/business/mackenzie-scott-philanthropy.html. You may request printed copies of these forms by contacting Client Relations at 18003870614 or at service@mackenzieinvestments.com. Ms. Scott appears attuned to the fact that her vast and growing fortune is made possible through Amazon, a company that has long faced scrutiny for its harsh working conditions and the myriad ways it has reshaped the economy, often centralizing wealth and power along the way. This is why Panorama Globallaunched the Collaborative Learning from Impact Philanthropy, CLIP, initiative, which includes several peer learning cohorts designed for Scott grant recipients at their request. Two previous Accion loans allowed Free to expand her Oakland, California catering business, The Red Door, from a couple of employees and a van in 2011 to dozens of employees and a 5,000 square foot kitchen before the pandemic. Our programs and grants help create joyful, enriching experiences that lay the foundation for a lifetime of learning, and provide adults with the knowledge and skills they need to give children the best possible start. For example, at national organizations with many affiliates across the country, she has funded some affiliates but not otherswithout asking those nonprofits for inputoccasionally creating internal difficulties and confusion for her recipients. ", "In this effort, we are governed by a humbling belief that it would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands, and that the solutions are best designed and implemented by others," Scott wrote. If you have any questions about the Foundation or our grant process, email us below for a quick response. She does not have a foundation of her own, which would require detailed public filings and a potentially large staff. She had a tough childhood, she says, having grown up in the 1980s as the child of Peruvian immigrants in San Franciscos Bay Area amid the onset of the war on drugs and era of mass incarceration. Yield Givings website includes a page devoted to Scotts process, describing the quiet research and evaluations her team has relied upon to pick recipients. However accessible the promised application process will make Scotts team, the woman herself isnt changing her communication strategy. Power deserves scrutiny.. She has not been transparent either about the vehicles being used for philanthropy or about the process, said Mr. Reich of Stanfords Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. Where Scott grant recipients chose to spend their unrestricted grants offers clues about the areas of global development that have historically been underfunded. What do we think they might do with more cash on hand than they expected? Scotts windfall grants have few or no strings attached and center on race, gender, equity, and localized decision-making. To date, Scott has committed $586.7 million in support of efforts to advance racial equity; $46 million to advance LGBTQ+ equity; $133 million to advance gender equity; $399.5 million to improve economic mobility in the United States; $55 million to help build empathy and bridge divides; $72 million in support of efforts to create a "functional democracy"; $128.3 million for public health initiatives; $130 million in support of global development; and $125 million to address climate change. But a new Bloomberg report makes excellent use of a visual timeline to provide some perspective on just how much more generous Scott has been with her money compared to her ex-husband Jeff Bezos: Since their divorcein 2019, shes become one of themost consequential philanthropists of her generation. Over the past nine months, Scott has awarded grants to 465 nonprofits. But Scott gave directly to charitable organizations: Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, notes that cash went directly to charities, rather than sitting in a foundation. Giving Billions Fast, MacKenzie Scott Upends Philanthropy Through a streamlined operation, Ms. Scott has given away $6 billion this year, much of it to small charities and nonprofits.. Because we believe that teams with experience on the front lines of challenges will know best how to put the money to good use, we encouraged them to spend it however they choose, she said. The unrestricted grants offered organizations space to learn and experiment lessons that can be shared to uplift an entire field. Ms. Scotts disbursement of $6 billion in about five months only accentuated the stodgy pace of her peers. As she has before, Ms. Scott also included a literary reference, this time from the Sufi poet Rumi. Exceptions may be made for religious organizations who can demonstrate bona fide occupational qualifications based on religious belief for employment and volunteer participation. MacKenzie. If their choice is to hold onto that wealth or give it away, Im going to come down on the side of giving it away every time., Giving Billions Fast, MacKenzie Scott Upends Philanthropy, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/20/business/mackenzie-scott-philanthropy.html. The University of Texas at San Antonio is also receiving $40 million, which its president called "completely transformational." MacKenzie Scott in 2018. Instead of traditional in-person corporate events, The Red Door began to provide food for virtual conferences by making at-home deliveries to attendees in the Bay Area. Severalglobal south recipients used the grant to hone the message that they are the experts and could stop working as subcontractors on the ground under the large INGOs that otherwise often get the big grants. "These are people who have spent years successfully advancing humanitarian aims, often without knowing whether there will be any money in their bank . Image Credit: Instagram MacKenzie Scott Foundation Website Scotts made quite the impression on the world of philanthropy as a result, even while shunning the spotlight and not talking to reporters. Some interactive form features may not be fully supported when using Google Chrome. To subscribe, select any of the newsletters listed below. In her post on Medium, she explained that her team's focus, which includes new areas, has been "to support the needs of underrepresented people from groups of all kinds." On July 28, 2020, MacKenzie Scott shocked the philanthropic community by donating USD 1.7 billion to 116 nonprofits around the world. All ten nonprofit leaders Forbes spoke with say the unrestricted and ultimately more trusting nature of Scotts philanthropy is the exception, not the norm in their world. She has swiftly followed through, and by 2021 had become the third most generous U.S. philanthropist on paper. Collaboration and cooperation with other organizations. Morgan could do with it as it saw fit. Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has donated almost $2 billion to more than 300 organizations in the last seven months, she said in a Medium post Monday. She thought she had found her lifes calling, but says there were a lack of opportunities. Women-led, Black women-led organizations tend to be at the very bottom of the pile for philanthropists, Ms. McWhorter said. Stop having to work every weekend. By Invitation Only. To address this, cohort members used their Scott grant to elevate their entire fields, by prioritizing collaborations with peers and strengthening capacities among their communities. By disbursing her money quickly and without much hoopla, Ms. Scott has pushed the focus away from the giver and onto the nonprofits she is trying to help. The website dropped at the end of a year in which Scott became more famous than ever, despite her shying from the spotlight, and not always for her donations. Scott's post lists all the recipients but doesn't state the amount of money they've been granted. MacKenzie Scott : "There are lots of resources each of us can pull from our safes to share with others. This can include advocacy to push a cause forward, convening peers for knowledge exchange, introducing new funders to locally based peers, and organizing to regrant to more grassroots organizations. "Their gift enables us to increase our impact for generations of students and inspires others to invest in building the future of America," he wrote. PAST COVERAGE: San Jacinto College anonymous donor gives free tuition to 2021 high school grads. MacKenzie Scott seems to be nonresponsive to traditional approaches (there is no application process) and operates much more like a Donor Advised Fund (DAF). She gave surprise gifts totaling $410 million to historically Black colleges and universities in December 2020 alone, adding to the nearly $6 billion she gave away last year. / Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we've tested sent to your inbox daily. Ms. Scott and Mr. Bezos met when they both worked at the hedge fund D.E. Scott is now married to Seattle teacher Dan Jewett. "Bezos' support comes at a critical moment as we broaden and deepen our efforts to support LGBTQ students who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color and LGBTQ students who are grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic. Change happens from the bottom up, and also the top down.. Morgan State is one of about 780 organizations to receive part of the $8.5 billion given away by Scott in three rounds since July 2020. Her Oakland neighborhood was beset by pollution and gang violence. Mackenzie Investments Charitable Foundation grants in 2018: $801,000 35 charities received grants in 2018 Largest grant to a partner charity in 2018: $50,000 Our Partner Charities The Foundation focuses on giving high-impact grants to charities across the country, with a special focus on organizations that help children and youth at risk. That mentality of trust is what we need in philanthropy, said Katie Carter, chief executive of the Pride Foundation in Seattle, an L.G.B.T.Q.+ charity that received a $3 million donation. Email to ctucker@scottrmackenziefoundation.com or mail to 2518 Park Street, Suite 2, Jacksonville, FL 32204. Powered and implemented by Interactive Data Managed Solutions. Ms. Scott made that pledge in 2019, after her divorce from Jeff Bezos. Instead, three times in the past 11 months, she has written a blog post on the website Medium, shared some reflections on philanthropy and the causes she supports, and announced that she had given away $1 billion or more. Once a saver, always a saver: Warren Buffett says generational wealth isnt what it used to be in his annual letter Its bigger than the housing crisis: An influential economist just blamed NIMBYs for American decline, and Elon Musk CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. By enabling organizations to explore power dynamics, redefine scale in a way that empowers communities, and invest in organizational resilience and sustainability, funders can support them to chart new terrain and advance systems change across global development. Ms. Scott's latest round of giving was less than the $4.2 billion in grants announced in December, which she linked directly to the enormous needs generated by the pandemic. In the last few years, they have ramped up attention to organizational culture and health to achieve maximum organizational impact. As part of their split, she received 4 percent of the outstanding shares of Amazon. MacKenzie Scott has unveiled a website to provide more transparency around her philanthropic efforts. For a complete list of grant recipients, see Scotts Medium post. And rather than a few targeted donations, she gave broadly to hundreds of groups. Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, made the announcement in a Medium blog post on Tuesday. This Foundation was established in 1976 by brothers Alan and Don Mackenzie. She noted that she had made unsolicited and unexpected gifts given with full trust and no strings attached. Such strings are a mainstay of modern philanthropy: onerous grant proposals and nerve-racking site visits, followed by reports on the variety of performance benchmarks that charities are required to meet to keep the money flowing. 2023 Vox Media, LLC. Her work focuses on supporting social entrepreneurs and social change leaders to implement their work through fiscal sponsorship and other partnership models, and co-leading efforts to deepen learning and knowledge sharing across the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. Experts on philanthropy said Ms. Scotts nearly $6 billion in gifts might be among the most ever handed out directly to charities in a single year by a living donor (as opposed to a billionaire making a huge one-time gift to a foundation to be disbursed over decades). But the criticism of Ms. Scott has tended to be more constructive than pointed. The recipients span from institutions of higher education and arts and culture, to organizations fighting poverty, working on interfaith issues and building community engagement. Candid gets you the information you need to do good. The remaining funds will go to initiatives such as fellowships for artists that include full salary and benefits, support for LGBTQ people of color breaking into Hollywood and administrative tasks like hiring additional staff. MacKenzie Scott has revolutionized philanthropy and the civil society and development sector by rapidly awarding more large grants faster than any other philanthropist: almost 1,600 grants totaling more than $14 billion since 2020. They are sworn to secrecy at first but are allowed to talk about the money once Ms. Scotts latest letter is posted. Her net worth, estimated at $36.1 billion in October 2019, has increased by some $23 billion since then. On a Monday evening in November, Dorri McWhorter, the chief executive of the Y.W.C.A. Little is known about how Ms. Scott selects her grantees, and there is no formal method for groups to apply for funds. Instead, they say, big donations come with the understanding that the money be used for specific purposes and programs. Eligibility requirements include completion of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and a simple scholarship application. And though in many ways Ms. Scott is upending how philanthropy has worked in recent decades, she also invested in several mainstays of the existing philanthropic community. Favianna Rodriguez, who received $11 million from Scott, says Scott's giving is a redistribution of wealth. Ms. Scott has moved away from the heavy hand of the philanthropy in steering the direction of social change, said Benjamin Soskis, a senior research associate in the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute. In December 2021, Scott briefly tried to withdraw even further from the limelight, and announced that she would let her recipients announce her gifts themselves. A gift like this for a nonprofit is equivalent to a billion dollars, Accion chief executive Luz Urrutia told Forbes. It is a pathbreaking approach to megaphilanthropy that seems designed to protect her tightly guarded privacy. The total amount of her giving in 2020 outstripped the entirety of the $5.1 billion in grants given by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2019, one of the worlds top philanthropic organizations. The wide array of gifts, and the manner in which they were announced, reflect Ms. Scotts highly unconventional approach to philanthropy. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. They are the types of organizations historically Black colleges and universities, community colleges and groups that hand out food and pay off medical debts that often fly beneath the radar of major foundations. [It] will go live only after it reflects the preferences of every one of these nonprofit teams about how details of their gifts are shared., We look forward to sharing the work of these remarkable organizations through this database of their gifts, 1257 to date since my pledge to give away this money with steadiness and care, Scott wrote. Groups across the country have received funds, and in a variety of areas: public health, education, the arts, racial equity, climate change and economic mobility, to name just a few. His network of nonprofits in November 2021 received a surprise phone call from a member of Scotts team, promising grants thateventually totalled$133.5million, for the national organization and 40 of its 110 affiliates; but for the 70 other affiliates, Saldaa acknowledged, the conversation was a difficult one. But shares of the company's stock rose sharply during the pandemic, and despite giving away billions, Scott's wealth keeps growing. Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has donated more than $2.7 billion to hundreds of charities and organizations. The Bloomberg timeline shows how the pace of giving shifted after the couple divorced; prior to 2019, they made several million- and multimillion-dollar donations here and there. Ms. Scott made a new round of grants, to 286 organizations. (Im still chuckling at the image for the year 2014 when the Bezoses donated a total of $2.25 million to fund clinical food allergy research at Stanford University: a photo of peanuts. GRANT APPLICATION Jacksonville's Scott R. MacKenzie Foundation offers grants for genetic research. More surprisingly, the operation (which the website calls Yield Giving) also announced that Scott will allow nonprofits to formally apply for her gifts in the future, through what it calls an open-call process. That process will include an online application, the website says, but it doesnt yet provide specifics on timing, simply saying it is upcoming.. And, unlike much philanthropic giving to institutions of higher education, the Scott money came with no strings attached. A gift like this for a nonprofit is equivalent to a billion dollars.. Though she has donated more than $8 billion over the past 11 months, primarily through direct gifts to nonprofits, today she is richer than ever, worth some $60 billion, according to Forbes. MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is giving away her $46 billion fortune faster than anyone in history. All Rights Reserved, By submitting your email, you agree to our. Among those receiving grants the average size was just under $10 million were the Alaska Native Heritage Center, Broward College in Florida and Jazz at Lincoln Center. But the $2.74 billion in gifts, announced just six months after that windfall, firmly establishes her as the most generous and influential philanthropist working today. 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