MacKenzie Scott has a message with her money
Philanthropist gives millions to Black Ensemble, Museum of Mexican Art
MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos and a woman with a net worth in excess of $50 billion, is giving away a whole lot of money at a speed comparable to the force with which her well-toned ex-husband hopes to blast himself into space.
On Tuesday, Scott announced that she and her new husband Dan Jewett had given away another $2.74 billion — yes, billion — to 286 lucky organizations. The arts in Chicago did very well out of the announcement. Along with local educational institutions like Kennedy-King College and the University of Illinois Chicago, the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen was a recipient, receiving a whopping $8 million, the biggest piece of largesse in its history. For a mid-sized museum still closed to the public, that kind of money has to be transformative. It dwarfs typical governmental funding, be it at the city, state or federal level. Regardless of the political administration.
Chicago’s Black Ensemble Theater was there on the lucky list, too. Founder and artistic director Jackie Taylor confirmed a $5 million grant Wednesday, by far the biggest contribution in the history of the long-established and proudly populist theater which produces mostly jukebox-type musicals, typically based on the biographies of beloved Black recording artists.
This should help Black Ensemble, located at 4450 N. Clark St., to develop its long-awaited studio space and advance its plans to turn its building on Chicago’s North Side into a cultural campus occupying both sides of Clark Street, although Taylor also said that she is hoping the grant will motivate others to give with similar generosity.
Many years ago, the eta Creative Arts Foundation on Chicago’s South Side had similar ambitions, but they always were stymied by a lack of cash. The indefatigable founder and president Abena Joan Brown died in 2017 without seeing many of her dreams realized. Taylor, whose legacy in this city is similarly distinguished, may now find herself in a very different position.
Scott’s grants are unrestricted, which is philanthropy-speak for allowing recipients to spend the big dough as they wish, as distinct from having to use the money for a specific purpose. Such infusions are, to say the least, rare.
What makes this whole story so fascinating is not just the stunning amount of money being dispersed so fast, although Scott is getting rid of it with the kind of fervor one might employ in packing up a former partner’s old man-cave. It’s also that she clearly is seeing this grant-giving as a redistribution of wealth flowing from a system to which MacKenzie now declares herself in fervent opposition.
“Putting large donors at the center of stories on social progress is a distortion of their role,” Scott wrote on the web platform Medium. “Me, Dan, a constellation of researchers and administrators and advisers — we are all attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change.”
Wow. And there’s more: “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.”
Now, you could argue Scott was not so much in public opposition to those unspecified systems when her ex-husband’s wealth was being built in the Amazon stock that passed to her in the divorce settlement. And it’s also worth noting that self-publishing huge announcements on Medium is a way to avoid press scrutiny. Most major philanthropies prefer more transparency about their criteria and procedures.
But Scott is casting the decision to avoid as much publicity as possible as an attempt to throw the focus on the programs being funded and get away from the typical self-promotion that accompanies generosity. She can’t be anonymous at this level of giving, unlike many generous individuals who give to the arts, but she can, she says, work to draw as little attention to herself as possible: “I want to de-emphasize privileged voices and cede focus to others, yet I know some media stories will focus on wealth.”
For good reason, I’d argue, since wealth confers power and philanthropy is, on some levels, always a soft manifestation of that power. However honorable the intent of the donors.
That said, this is still a stunning announcement to anyone who has watched arts and educational organizations wherein the level of talent greatly exceeds the amount of funding.
It is an oft-repeated mantra that larger organizations get the lion’s share of funding from major national foundations. Not this time. Scott supported the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen, not the Art Institute of Chicago, and Black Ensemble Theatre in Uptown, not the Goodman Theatre in Chicago’s Loop. There is no question that all four of those organizations do fine, important work but the pendulum clearly has swung in the other direction. If a donor this big is seeking out smaller groups in community neighborhoods, that is a massive shift.
And all it took was the divorce of a very wealthy couple, now going in very different directions. Maybe this story will play out again with another couple, but, for now, wrap your head around this. Donations from the former spouse of a single living businessperson are blowing everything, even governments, out of the sky.