Mackenzie Scott donates millions
17 nonprofits say they have received $97M
Mackenzie Scott’s quest to give the bulk of her wealth to charity continues.
So far this year, 17 nonprofits have announced they’ve received unrestricted donations from Scott through her Yield Giving fund, according to a Chronicle of Philanthropy tally. The gifts total $97 million and range from $1 million to
$15 million. Nearly half went to charities focused on early-childhood education and early-childhood development. Scott has now given more than $14.1 billion to at least 1,621 charities since 2020.
To encourage people to focus on the charities rather than on her,
Scott has stopped announcing her donations as she had in the past. Now she leaves it up to the charities to decide whether to publicize her gifts. Given the scale of her giving in previous years, it is likely the 17 announced contributions represent only a portion of what she has actually donated so far this year.
Charity leaders say they appreciate Scott’s decision to let nonprofits choose whether to publicize the gifts because it lets them decide what’s best for the organization.
“It was in our best interest to announce this donation and to share the victory with our peers in the movement,” says Sean Mccarthy, who manages donor relations at the National Housing Trust. The affordable housing group landed a $10 million gift from Scott last month, its largest donation to date. “We view this gift as a vote of confidence.”still, there were pros and cons to consider. Trust officials wanted to announce the gift to show that a high-profile philanthropist like Scott has faith in the trust’s mission and its ability to manage a gift of that size.
They discussed the potential downsides to publicizing it, too, such as concerns that other donors would think Scott’s gift provided the trust with all it needs to carry out its mission.
“The reality is that this is a very large problem that we’re trying to solve. There’s a shortage of over 7 million affordable homes here in the United States alone, and so when we decided to publish this, we wanted to ensure that we weren’t sharing that we now have all the resources we need to pursue our mission,” Mccarthy says. “We’re still in need of support from a variety of sources.”
Patricia Lozano, executive director of Early Edge California, an early-childhood education advocacy group, had similar reasons for wanting to publicize the $3 million gift the organization received this summer.
“It was a win for Early Edge to be recognized, and it’s the first time in our history that we got a gift of this size,” Lozano says. “It was a recognition of our work and all our successes. Our work is very specifically around advocacy, so we thought it would be a good thing for us to show our funders and possible partners that we’re trusted and recognized.”
Scott launched Yield Giving’s website in December to answer the nonprofit world’s call for more transparency. The site names groups that received gifts and, in some cases, the amount they got. But it hasn’t been updated since last year, so it’s unclear exactly how many gifts she has made this year. That has left the philanthropy world wondering what to make of Scott’s latest donations.