MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is giving away her $46 billion fortune faster than anyone in history. Morgan State University, a historically Black public college in Baltimore that traces its roots to the year 1867, has always struggled financially. The first email literally got stuck in my junk mail.. 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. Scotts windfall grants have few or no strings attached and center on race, gender, equity, and localized decision-making. MacKenzie Scott has unveiled a website to provide more transparency around her philanthropic efforts. Women dont like to splash their names on buildings, in general.. 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. The choices, experiences, and reflections of Scotts global grant recipients provide valuable insights to understand where global development aid has fallen short and how to improve philanthropy in order to advance systems change. Among the recipients are more than 220 organizations operating globally, half of which are based outside the United States. MacKenzie Scott An umbrella organization for more than 120 women's funds and foundations is among the recipients of the latest $2.7 billion round of grants from McKenzie Scott. She just doesnt seem to be tuned in to that kind of stuff at all, Mr. Callahan said. Not only are nonprofits chronically underfunded, they are also chronically diverted from their work by fund-raising and by burdensome reporting requirements that donors often place on them, Ms. Scott wrote. Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has announced details of the more than $3.86 billion in gifts she has awarded since June of 2021.. Over the past nine months, Scott has awarded grants to 465 nonprofits. "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. What do we think they might do with more cash on hand than they expected? 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. Hes stepping down as Amazon CEO later this year and says he plans to focus on other passions, including the Bezos Earth Fund, the Day 1 Fund, and The Washington Post. GRANT APPLICATION Jacksonville's Scott R. MacKenzie Foundation offers grants for genetic research. It works on two levels!). This shift in the locus of decision-making is critical. It also distinguished her from her former husband, the richest man in the world. (I'm still chuckling at the image for the year 2014 when the Bezoses donated a total of $2.25 million to fund clinical food allergy . Scott, who divorced from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2019, made the announcement in a blog post on the website Medium. Over the past nine months, Scott has awarded grants to 465 nonprofits. In her blog post, Scott describes systemic societal inequities and her belief that giving money to organizations directly working with communities in need is the way her wealth can be put to use, saying that she, her husband and her staff and advisers "are all attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change. "We are so grateful for MacKenzie Bezos' support of our work to empower LGBTQ students and springboard a new generation of LGBTQ leaders toward success," said Jorge Valencia, executive director and CEO of the Point Foundation, the nation's largest LGBTQ scholarship fund. Including February's gifts, she has given away a total of $8.8 billion in less than two years to more than 780 organizationsmore than four times what her ex-husband has donated so far in his lifetime, Forbes calculates. Go read this Bloomberg article for a detailed look at how shes done it. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Buy needed supplies. However accessible the promised application process will make Scotts team, the woman herself isnt changing her communication strategy. We learned that organizations navigated tough decisions around saving vs. spending balancing the need to create financial sustainability vehicles, such as endowments and setting funds aside for innovation, alongside urgent spending to attend to growing needs amid the pandemic. Scott is now married to Seattle teacher Dan Jewett. For a complete list of grant recipients, see Scotts Medium post. November 2023 meeting - applications close on the 27th of October 2023. 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 . The MacKenzie Scott Opportunities Scholarship (S.O.S) will assist first-time, credential-seeking, young adults under age 25 attend college. After calls for more transparency, in December Scott wrote that she hopes to launch a website with a searchable grants database this year. And although Ms. Scott offered a list of nearly 400 organizations, she could well have given gifts to other groups. As she has before, Ms. Scott also included a literary reference, this time from the Sufi poet Rumi. Her net worth is estimated to be nearly $60 billion. When I got off the phone I had to collect myself, says Morgan President David Wilson. Yield Givings website doesnt include any sort of contact information, and a page on Inquiries politely discourages what must be a deluge of informal pitches from anyone who knows anyone who knows Scott. Ms. Scotts disbursement of $6 billion in about five months only accentuated the stodgy pace of her peers. They divorced in mid-2019 and she received 25% of his Amazon stake. However, some organizations have revealed how much money they'll receive. Ms. Scott is working on her giving with the Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit organization in Boston that advises charities and philanthropies, including those set up by Mr. Gates and Michael Bloomberg, as well as the Ford and Rockefeller foundations. 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. hide caption. A large, unrestricted grant can shift an organizations position providing greater visibility, more opportunities to influence the fields direction, and greater legitimacy with donors. But Scotts gifts in 2020 were unrestricted, indicating she trusted the people on the ground doing the work, and it gives lie to the idea that its hard to make billion-dollar donations. She has swiftly followed through, and by 2021 had become the third most generous U.S. philanthropist on paper. Favianna Rodriguez, who received $11 million from Scott, says Scott's giving is a redistribution of wealth. They included well-known arts groups such as the Apollo Theater and Ballet Hispnico. Scott noted that all were awarded general operating support grants but did not disclose individual grant amounts. There is no evident mechanism by which organizations can apply for donations. Please Note: We are NOT MacKenzie Scott or Dan Jewett. 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. Feasibility studies for capital campaigns. So she applied to art school, only to be rejected. Additionally, the funds were used to invest in systems that would outlast the founding leaders and teams. In a recent analysis, we looked at the characteristics of the December cohort, which totaled $4.2 billion to 384 nonprofits. Her latest round on June 15 was $2.7 billion distributed to 286 groups. Saying that she's troubled by the increasing concentration of wealth, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott says she is giving away another $2.7 billion of her fortune to 286 nonprofit organizations.. That fund will eventually disclose the groups that received money, but is not required to say who is behind each gift. Jewett joined Scott in signing the Giving Pledge, a commitment by wealthy individuals to give away a majority of their money. Must be postmarked by April 30th. Understanding of and ability to describe the relationship between the proposed project and other services, and service providers within the community. Scotts gifts come in the form of unrestricted grants, meaning that nonprofits can spend the money however they want rather than on particular programs. Even as the philanthropic funding discourse is gradually shifting toward localized and decentralized decision-making, funding practice hasnt kept up. Her Oakland neighborhood was beset by pollution and gang violence. Scott, the ex-wife of the worlds richest person, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (net worth nearly $200 billion), was making a transformative donation to Morgan of $40 million. (Editor's note: The amount of money transferred into Lehman College's endowment has been changed based on updated information provided by the college.) 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. She had three children from her former marriage and they adopted one girl from China. Criteria for Grantmaking All organizations applying for Foundation funds must be able to demonstrate the following organizational characteristics: Staff capacity, sound fiscal policy and responsible financial management. In the last few years, they have ramped up attention to organizational culture and health to achieve maximum organizational impact. As one organization put it, "We should be building local organizations because they will be there longer than us and will have more credibility." We know that LGBTQ young people are powerful and resilient, and Bezos' gift will allow us to help more LGBTQ young people pursue higher education and achieve their full potential as leaders in our society.". 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. Political candidates or organizations, fraternal organizations or veteran organizations. 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. On a Monday evening in November, Dorri McWhorter, the chief executive of the Y.W.C.A. Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, made the announcement in a Medium blog post on Tuesday. 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