By THALIA BEATY (Associated Press)
Billionaire philanthropist and writer MacKenzie Scott declared on Tuesday that she is donating $640 million to 361 small nonprofits that applied in response to an open call for applications.
Yield Giving’s initial donations have exceeded Scott's initial pledge for the application process. Since 2019, Scott and her team have researched and selected organizations without applications and provided them with large, unrestricted gifts.
On her website, Scott expressed gratitude to Lever for Change, the organization that managed the open call, and the evaluators for their roles in creating this pathway to support for people working to improve access to foundational resources in their communities. They are vital agents of change.
The increase in both the award amount and the number of selected organizations is a welcome surprise, said Elisha Smith Arrillaga, vice president at The Center for Effective Philanthropy. She is interested in learning more about the applicants’ experience of the process and whether Scott continues to use this process going forward.
When applications opened, 6,353 nonprofits applied for the $1 million grants.
The donor team decided to expand the group of awardees and the amount of the award,
The 279 organizations that received top scores from an external review panel were given $2 million, while 82 organizations in a second tier received $1 million each.
Prize philanthropy competitions like Scott’s open call can help organizations without connections with a specific funder get considered, said Renee Karibi-Whyte, senior vice president, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.
“One of the best aspects about prize philanthropy is that it brings to light people, organizations, and institutions that would not otherwise have access to the people in power and the funding,” she said. Her organization also advises funders who run competitive grants or philanthropic prize competitions to phase the application to reduce the burden of applying on any organization that is eliminated early.
Megan Peterson, executive director of the Minnesota-based nonprofit, Gender Justice, viewed the application as a rare opportunity to get noticed by Scott.
“Having seen the types of work that she has supported in the past, we did feel like, ‘Oh, if only she knew that we were out here racking up wins,’” said Peterson.
Her organization has won lawsuits recently around access to emergency contraception and the rights of trans youth to participate in sports. They plan to use the funds to expand their work into North Dakota. Peterson said the funds must be used for tax exempt purposes but otherwise come with no restrictions or reporting requirements — just like Scott’s previous grants.
“I think she’s really helping to set a new path for philanthropy broadly, which is with that philosophy of: Find people doing good work and give them resources and then get out of the way,” Peterson said of Scott. “I am grateful for not just the support individually, but the way in which I think she is having an impact on philanthropy broadly.”
The public request asked for nonprofits led by the community with goals “to advance the voices and opportunities of individuals and families of meager or modest means,” Yield Giving explained on its website. Only nonprofits with yearly budgets between $1 and $5 million were allowed to apply.
The winners were chosen through a multi-step process, where candidates rated other candidates and then the top organizations were evaluated by a group of external experts.
Scott has donated $16.5 billion from the fortune she received after divorcing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Initially, she shared the gifts in online blog posts, sometimes naming the organizations and sometimes not. She introduced a database of her giving in December 2022, under the name Yield Giving.
In an essay discussing the website, she wrote, “Information from other people – other givers, my team, the nonprofit teams I’ve been giving to – has been enormously helpful to me. If more information about these gifts can be helpful to anyone, I want to share it.”
Smith Arrillaga, of CEP, said it was important that Scott is, “continuing to honor her commitment in terms of giving away her wealth, even though she’s thinking, changing and tweaking the ‘how’ of how it’s done and she’s still trying to go with the spirit of what she committed to.”
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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
