The business was teetering on the brink. Like her previous public letters, Ms. Scotts latest blog post was a personal reflection on privilege, need and responsibility. Since Ms. Scott does not have a foundation, at least some of her contributions are made through a donor-advised fund, a controversial vehicle that facilitates some charitable donations. While philanthropy experts applauded Ms. Scotts generosity, the scale of her giving is prompting calls for her to be more transparent. Dance Theater of Harlem, which received $10 million, said the gift was the largest in its history. Many big-time donors, he said, model themselves off of venture capitalism and take an extremely aggressive approach in terms of monitoring the performance of grant recipients. "These are people who have spent years successfully advancing humanitarian aims, often without knowing whether there will be any money in their bank accounts in two months. Change happens from the bottom up, and also the top down.. Yet even as she disbursed her billions, Ms. Scott expressed some ambivalence about her fortune and the source of it, writing in a blog post that it would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands.. 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. MacKenzie Scott is a private citizen, but she is playing a public role, said Maribel Morey, founding executive director of the Miami Institute for the Social Sciences. 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. Dia DipasupilGetty Images MacKenzie Scott, the reclusive billionaire who has in three. Rodriguez is already putting the funds to work: $8 million will be redistributed, she says, to support artists of color in the groups network. While Scott's participation in funder collaboratives and initiatives such asBlue Meridian Partnersand theEquality Can't Wait Challengehas been noted previously, she had not announced details of her giving. Less than two months into 2022, Scott isnt showing any signs of slowing down. If you are looking for a way to serve humanitys common cause, every one of them is a great candidate. The organizations invested in their sustainability put the grants toward areas such as programmatic innovation, operations and infrastructure, reserves, salaries, new recruitment, and staff and leadership development. Whereas multibillion foundations like Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have fancy headquarters, Ms. Scotts operation has no known address or even website. Yet in the latest batch of grantees, Ms. Morey saw little evidence that Ms. Scott was attempting to use her wealth to counter Amazons influence. "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. Ms. Scott described in her Medium post how her team used hundreds of emails and phone interviews and thousands of pages of data analysis to sift through 6,490 potential gift recipients. Bezos is following in the footsteps of other famous billionaires who turned their focus toward philanthropy after retiring from the day-to-day of running a business. The phone rang in Morgans development office. 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. MacKenzie Scott seems to be nonresponsive to traditional approaches (there is no application process) and operates much more like a Donor Advised Fund (DAF). 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. At the time, her portion of the settlement, some 4 percent of Amazon shares, was valued at around $36 billion. The recipients span from institutions of higher education and arts and culture, to organizations fighting poverty, working on interfaith issues and building community engagement. We want to invest it over decades.. She refers to a team of advisers rather than a large dedicated staff. Ms. Scott also gave to higher-education institutions including schools in the University of California and the University of Texas systems; organizations focused on racial justice, such as Race Forward and Borealis Philanthropy; groups focused on gender equity and combating domestic violence; and an assortment of other nonprofits including the Authors League Fund, which helps writers in financial need, and Afrika Tikkun, which works to end child poverty in South Africa. Organizations where person(s) are excluded from employment, volunteer participation, or agency services because of age, gender, race, national origin, religious beliefs and background, physical abilities, disability, sexual orientation, economic circumstances, and any other characteristic protected by law. To maximize time for giving and ensure information reaches us at times when we are prepared to review it, we do not invite unsolicited messages suggesting candidates, including forwards from friends, family, or personal connections, Scotts website says. Gloria C. MacKenzie Foundation Seeks Grantees If your organization is interested in applying for a grant, we invite you to proceed with our grant application process. Notably, Scott didnt publicly announce these donations herself, as she has done in the past. As you probably know, DAFs are not public entities so there's no application process, unless the donor decides to make the process public, which Ms. Scott has not chosen to do. Her main expression of that critique is giving away so much money so quickly, and supporting so many bottom-up organizations, Mr. Callahan said. (In practical terms, shes even more impressive: Last years second-biggest donor to charity, Elon Musk, directed his $5.7 billion donation in Tesla shares to his personal foundation, reaping a tax benefit without distributing much of the money to charity, tax records show.). 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. Over the course of 2020, MacKenzie Scott announced grants totaling almost $6 billion. 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. | Chattanooga Web Design by Strafire. In September, she quietly filed for divorce from her second husband, a science teacher named Dan Jewett, who had briefly shared her Giving Pledge page and apparently participated in her donation process. In February alone, nine organizations announced gifts from Scott totaling $264.5 million. As she did in July when she announced donations of $1.7 billion to 116 organizations, Ms. Scott unveiled her latest round of philanthropy through a post on Medium. Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, said at the time of Scott's last round of donations that she was "putting to shame the other 650 U.S. billionaires who haven't [figured] out comparable ways to boldly share. You may request printed copies of these forms by contacting Client Relations at 18003870614 or at service@mackenzieinvestments.com. 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. It works on two levels!). A child's future is profoundly influenced by how they learn and develop in their earliest years. Scott also saw her life inspire a comedy series on AppleTV+, Loot, in which Maya Rudolph plays a fictionalized billionaire divorcing her tech-founder husband and figuring out how to give away the fortune she takes from the marriage. But the moment Rodriguez was waiting for came two weeks ago, when Scott donated $11 million to the group. 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. Now, for the third time in under a year, Ms. Scott has announced a new round of grants, worth a combined $2.74 billion, demonstrating that her dedication to rapidly disbursing her fortune has not abated. Even as the philanthropic funding discourse is gradually shifting toward localized and decentralized decision-making, funding practice hasnt kept up. The Foundation is a nonprofit, tax-exempt charitable organization . We have to accelerate. Learn more Adolescent Learning If you have any questions about the Foundation or our grant process, email us below for a quick response. 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. Though her net worth now exceeds the value of the endowment of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest charity in the world, Ms. Scott has shown no interest in developing that kind of formal structure around her giving. Otherwise, the windfall gift can take the limelight, shifting the prevailing narrative to become that these organizations no longer need donor funding, which is problematic and erroneous. Instead, most grant recipients first learn of their potential windfall when they are approached by representatives of Ms. Scott, often from the nonprofit consulting firm the Bridgespan Group, and told that they are under consideration for a substantial sum from an anonymous giver. By Invitation Only. Scott also won praise from philanthropy experts for the way she donated her money: without strings attached. Editor's note: Updated on Feb. 28, 2022 to include a donation to the Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his ex-wife. But the Red Door had the rug pulled out from under it when Covid hit. Like the $4 billion Scott gave to 384 organizations in the last four months of 2020, the donations are unrestricted, so recipients can use the money as they see fit. It's not only a significant moment for myself, but it's a moment for BIPOC-led and BIPOC-serving art institutions at a time when we have been devastated by the pandemic, she says. Additionally, the National 4-H Council, an agriculturally focused youth organization, received $50 million. Scott noted that all were awarded general operating support grants but did not disclose individual grant amounts. Her net worth is estimated to be nearly $60 billion. 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." She has so far given away more than $8 billion in three rounds of funding revealed in the same manner. Some things Jeff Bezos can do with his $193 billion, Meta backs new tool for removing sexual images of minors posted online, Mark Zuckerberg says Meta now has a team building AI tools and personas, Whoops! The billionaire philanthropist has so far given away more than $8 billion of her fortune in three rounds of funding. But two days later, after widespread criticism over this diminished transparency, Scott backpedaledand promised that her team was developing an online database of her gifts. If you want to have a leading voice in addressing inequality, you have to address Amazons profit maximization in the private sector.. While Scott publicly announces each round on Medium, the blogging website, she does not appear to speak directly to the nonprofits. MacKenzie Scott, the reclusive billionaire who has in three years donated upwards of $14 billion to more than 1,600 nonprofits, may start accepting applications from would-be recipients. This shift in the locus of decision-making is critical. These are the kinds of stories Scotts grant was able to propel, says Urrutia. Fundraising expenses or activities or staff positions related to development or fundraising. MacKenzie Scott's 2020 giving outstripped the over $5 billion in grants given by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2019. chapters. That changed in December 2020. 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.. They were valued at the time at $38 billion. MacKenzie Scott has unveiled a website to provide more transparency around her philanthropic efforts. But shares of the company's stock rose sharply during the pandemic, and despite giving away billions, Scott's wealth keeps growing. Each nonprofit it will list was selected through a rigorous process, and has a strong track record of serving under-supported needs. They were farmers of Ealing who wanted to leave . 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. They divorced in mid-2019 and she received 25% of his Amazon stake. MacKenzie Scott : "There are lots of resources each of us can pull from our safes to share with others. 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. She has until now announced her donations, and named the nonprofits shes funding, through reflective, literary essays posted twice a year on Medium. Here are some deeper insights from our pilot cohort of Scott grant recipients for the global development sector: Global recipient organizations are redefining the notion of scale and increasing impact by reaching more people in ways that give communities greater agency. To subscribe, select any of the newsletters listed below. As part of their split, she received 4 percent of the outstanding shares of Amazon. MacKenzie Scott Announces $4.2 Billion More in Charitable Giving "She's disrupting the norms around billionaire philanthropy by moving quickly," an expert on charities said. Women dont like to splash their names on buildings, in general.. Long Beach City College, in California, thanked Scott for $30 million also the single largest donation in its history. She had three children from her former marriage and they adopted one girl from China. 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. Me, Dan, a constellation of researchers and administrators and advisors we are all attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change, she wrote. This highlights the need to give organizations the freedom to build muscle for resilience, as they see fit. Powered and implemented by Interactive Data Managed Solutions. An infusion of $15 million from Scottthe largest single donation in Accions 27 year historywas immediately put to work in a Covid relief fund. Yield Givings website also appears to address another criticism that Fortune highlighted in our reporting earlier this year: Scotts lack of availability to those with good reason to seek her money, and the difficulties this lack of accessibility can cause for those shes trying to help. Thanks to the soaring value of that stock, Ms. Scott is accumulating wealth faster than she can give it away. 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 . 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. S&P Index data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. A significant amount was granted to organisations focused on issues of equity, with noteworthy support to leaders of colour and those identifying as LGBTQIA+. They included well-known arts groups such as the Apollo Theater and Ballet Hispnico. Metropolitan Chicago, got a phone call from a representative of the billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. If you look at the motivations for the way women engage in philanthropy versus the ways that men engage in philanthropy, theres much more ego involved in the man, its much more transactional, its much more status driven, said Debra Mesch, a professor at the Womens Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University. The National Council on Aging got $8 million, while mental health nonprofit the Jed Foundation got $15 million. If Ms. Scott was making her donations through a foundation, she would be required to publicly disclose the amounts and recipients of all gifts. 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. It stings to be on the outside when others in the network are receiving gifts.. The billionaire philanthropist has so far given away more than $8 billion of her fortune in three rounds of funding. MacKenzie Scott promised she would give her fortune away until the safe is empty. That has proved to be harder than expected. MacKenzie Scott announced on Tuesday her second major charitable contribution of the year, giving away nearly $4.2 billion to 384 organizations as part of a plan to donate a majority of her fortune. The website unveiled this week is the result. Ms. Scotts 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. Instead, they say, big donations come with the understanding that the money be used for specific purposes and programs. After calls for more transparency, in December Scott wrote that she hopes to launch a website with a searchable grants database this year. It also distinguished her from her former husband, the richest man in the world. A gift like this for a nonprofit is equivalent to a billion dollars.. However, some organizations have revealed how much money they'll receive. A large, unrestricted grant can shift an organizations position providing greater visibility, more opportunities to influence the fields direction, and greater legitimacy with donors. And rather than a few targeted donations, she gave broadly to hundreds of groups. Unable to update subscription. MacKenzie Scott in 2018. A social enterprise, we connect and inform 1,021,000+ development, health, humanitarian, and sustainability professionals through news, business intelligence, and funding & career opportunities so you can do more good for more people. Terms & Conditions. 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. Get the latest nonprofit news, funding opportunities, job openings, and more delivered to your inbox with Philanthropy News Digest newsletters. There is no evident mechanism by which organizations can apply for donations. Mackenzie Scott gave nearly $6 billion to charity in 2020. . Scott's approach to philanthropy is unusual in a number of ways. MacKenzie Scott is a philanthropist, author, and ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, to whom she was married for 25 years. 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