MacKenzie Scott, a philanthropist, has revealed on Tuesday that her organization, Yield Giving, and Lever for Change will be donating a total of $640 million to 361 different charitable organizations. This announcement follows an open call for applicants. There were almost 6,000 charitable organizations that had submitted applications for the funds. According to Lever for Change, the group that organized the open call, Scott ended up giving more than twice as much as what was planned for the initial open call, which stipulated that there would be 250 awards of one million dollars each made available.
“The donor team decided to expand the awardee pool and the award amount,” according to Lever for Change. “This decision was made in light of the incredible work that these organizations have done, as judged by their peers and external panelists.” In contrast to her ex-husband Jeff Bezos, whom she assisted in the establishment of Amazon, Scott’s approach to charitable giving is different. Scott distributes her enormous amounts of philanthropy to hundreds of smaller organizations, in contrast to Bezos and his fiancée Lauren Sanchez, who announced a significant and splashy commitment of fifty million dollars each to the actress Eva Longoria and the retired Admiral Bull McRaven.
Many receivers experience a profound change as a result of the presents. An group called Gender Justice, which works to achieve gender equality, recently announced that it has received a donation of $2 million, which is the organization’s greatest one-time gift in its entire existence. The executive director of Gender Justice, Megan Peterson, made the following statement in response to the award: “This Open Call award helps us take our fight for justice and equity to the next level, continuing our work to dismantle the legal, structural, and cultural barriers that contribute to gender inequity.”
Organizations were required to receive ratings from their contemporaries in order to advance in the prize. After advancing to a second-round interview with an external panel in the fall of 2023, the applicants who received the highest ratings went on to participate in a final round of interviews, according to Lever for Change. A total of $2 million was awarded to each of the 279 groups that achieved the highest possible scores, while the 82 organizations that had the next highest score were each awarded $1 million.
It is the responsibility of Scott’s organization, Yield Giving, to keep a database of donation amounts for the various nonprofit organizations and organizations to whom it gives. In December of last year, Scott made the announcement that Yield Giving had received gifts totaling $2.15 billion over the course of the previous year. As of the year 2022, Scott reported that her group has contributed more than $3.8 billion to 465 different organizations over the course of nine months. Habitat for Humanity to the tune of $436 million, and Girl Scouts of the United States of America to the tune of $84.5 million, which is the organization’s greatest ever donation from a single individual.
