Since pledging his entire fortune for the first time in 2019, billionaire Mackenzie Scott has given out more than $12 billion to nonprofits since 2020, according to publicly announced gifts. That enormous amount has propelled him to the top ranks of philanthropists across the globe.
In her latest essay on the website Medium on Wednesday, Ms Scott described an additional $3.9 billion in gifts to 465 nonprofits over the past nine months, including funds dedicated to areas she has given in the past, such as That climate and education, as well as new pressing needs, such as the Ukraine relief effort.
“Over the past nine months our team has added some new areas of focus, but as always our aim has been to support the needs of underrepresented people from all types of groups,” wrote Ms. Scott.
On Wednesday, Habitat for Humanity International announced that Scott had donated $436 million to the group and 84 affiliates. She gave $275 million to the National Office of Planned Parenthood and 21 affiliates across the country, which the group called the largest gift from a single donor in its history.
“At such critical times for reproductive health and rights, this investment in Planned Parenthood and an expression of faith will help us to be as strong as we can to meet this moment,” said Melanie Linton, President of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast and said the chairman of the affiliated council, in a statement on Wednesday.
All told, 1,257 organizations have received donations from Ms. Scott since 2020. Even the amounts they give to small groups are often large by their standards, in many cases equal to the organization’s entire annual budget.
This was the case when Ms. Scott donated $15 million last week to Madre, an aid and human rights organization in New York that supports women’s groups around the world, according to the organization. “This is the largest grant we’ve ever received from a donor by orders of magnitude,” said Yifat Suskin, Madre’s executive director.
Ms Suskind celebrated what the organization can do for those in need – but also wanted to make sure smaller donors know they are valuable, too. “We’re doing what we can to send the message to people that it’s everyone’s confidence in our work that brought us to the point where we can get on the radar of someone like Mackenzie Scott,” she said. .
Wednesday’s announcement was a reversal of course for Scott, who is grappling with conflicting demands for her desire for privacy and her goal to make public the work done by the groups she is helping. Unlike foundations, which must file detailed, publicly available tax returns, Scott gives through charitable vehicles known as donor-advised funds, which do not require her to file separate disclosures. .
Even after several gifts, Forbes magazine still estimates Ms. Scott’s net worth at $49.4 billion.
In December she issued a letter titled “No Dollar Signs This Time”, in which she declined to name the organizations she gave or the total amount she gave.
The Russo-Ukraine War and the Global Economy
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Lack of essential metals. The price of palladium, used in automotive exhaust systems and mobile phones, is rising amid fears that Russia, the world’s biggest metal exporter, could be cut off from global markets. The price of nickel, another major Russian export, is also rising.
financial turmoil. Global banks are bracing for the effects of sanctions intended to restrict Russia’s access to foreign capital and its ability to process payments in dollars, euros and other currencies important to business. Banks are also on alert for retaliatory cyber attacks by Russia.
Two days later, facing criticism that she had fallen short rather than more transparent, she wrote an addendum in which she said she was working on a website that would include a “searchable database of gifts”.
Ms Scott seemed pre-emptive of any potential criticism that the website had not yet been taken up, writing that it “reflects the preferences of each of these nonprofit teams in how the details of their gifts are shared.” “
While Ms. Scott has written extensively about her goal of promoting equity and in particular her efforts to prioritize groups led by women, people of color and LGBTQ people, she is more in times of need. Doesn’t shy away from general direct assistance, such as when she gave to food banks and YMCA and YWCA chapters during the first, acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
This time it listed seven groups working directly on Ukraine after the Russian invasion there, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, HIAS and CARE.
“Helping any one of us,” he concluded, “could help all of us.”
