Stories by MacKenzie Scott on Medium

“We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For”

MacKenzie Scott — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 16:26:49 GMT

Lately I’ve been thinking about murmurations of starlings. The direction of these flights of millions of birds is not determined by any single leader or delegation, but by the responses of each bird to the needs and movements of the birds around it. In this way, they are constantly creating their direction together, and no bird among them can know what shape it will take or where they will land.

There is a prophecy written by Hopi elders in the year 2000. It encourages us to recognize and celebrate our role as active participants in the co-creation of our communities.

It’s easy to focus on the methods of civic participation that make news, and hard to imagine the importance of the things we do each day with our own minds and hearts. Who nurtured a child in the kitchen; who was kind to a stranger in line at a grocery store; who gave fifty dollars to a local food shelter: these are not news stories. But all of it matters.

When my next cycle of gifts is posted to my database online, the dollar total will likely be reported in the news, but any dollar amount is a vanishingly tiny fraction of the personal expressions of care being shared into the world this year. To use just one year in the United States as an example, the total donated to US charities of all kinds in 2020 was $471 billion, nearly a third of it in increments of less than $5,000. There was also $68 billion in reported financial support sent to family members living in other countries, tens of billions in crowdfunding, $200 billion in volunteer labor at service organizations, and nearly $700 billion in wages for the paid employees who chose to take jobs delivering those services over jobs where they might have earned more. Over 70% of Americans reported giving both labor and money to people they know, and half reported doing the same for strangers. That’s well over a trillion dollars worth of individual humanitarian action that we don’t read about online or hear about on the nightly news. To begin to imagine how much more there must be, just consider how many people take time out of their income-producing activities every day to listen with compassion, or to speak up for someone.

And the multiplier effect on the social value of every one of these forms of benevolent contribution is huge.

Generosity and kindness engage the same pleasure centers in the brain as sex, food, and receiving gifts, and they improve our health and long-term happiness as well. The peace-fostering byproducts of one unexpected act of kindness toward a stranger of different background or beliefs might inspire a beneficial chain reaction that goes on for years. Respect, understanding, insight, empathy, forgiveness, inspiration — all of these are meaningful contributions to others.

It is these ripple effects that make imagining the power of any of our own acts of kindness impossible. Whose generosity did I think of every time I made every one of the thousands of gifts I’ve been able to give? It was the local dentist who offered me free dental work when he saw me securing a broken tooth with denture glue in college. It was the college roommate who found me crying, and acted on her urge to loan me a thousand dollars to keep me from having to drop out in my sophomore year. And after she saw the difference she made in my life, what was she inspired to do, twenty years later? Start a company that offers loans to low-income students without a co-signer. And how quickly did I jump at the chance to be one of the people who supported her dream of supporting students just as she had once supported me? And to whom will each of the thousands of students thriving on those generosity- and gratitude-powered student loans go on to give? None of us has any idea.

The potential of peaceful, non-transactional contribution has long been underestimated, often on the basis that it is not financially self-sustaining, or that some of its benefits are hard to track. But what if these imagined liabilities are actually assets? What if these so-called weaknesses foster the strengths upon which the thriving (or even survival) of our civilization depends? What if the fact that some of our organizations are vulnerable can itself be a powerful engine for our generosity? What if acts of service that we can feel but can’t always measure expand our capacity for connection and trust? What if care is a way for all of us to make a difference in leading and shaping our countries? Votes are not the only way to show what we’d like to see more of in our societies. There are many ways to influence how we move through the world, and where we land.

also posted on Yield Giving

Bridges and Barriers

MacKenzie Scott — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 22:52:26 GMT

The process of building a website has been a strange one for me.

Who is it for? the people helping me build it asked reasonably. What do you want them to do?

Anybody. Nothing.

Why are you doing it? friends asked when they saw me scratching my head.

A good question.

Information from other people — other givers, my team, the non-profit 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.

Designing a website that reflects and fulfills this simple intention has been tricky.

Directing user action, maximizing clicks, keeping users on the site, I don’t want or need to do any of these things. I have nothing to sell.

Highlighting the work of non-profits is important; sharing other information is important as well.

Focusing words and features can enhance understanding; adding other content can help prevent fraud.

The push and pull of sometimes conflicting design imperatives took us through many rounds of revision.

And throughout it all, were the many steps driven by our unwavering commitment to presenting information about the work of non-profits with search terms they can choose and mission statements in words of their own.

In the end the result has been this: a large volume of data carefully loaded and sorted according to the preferences of non-profits, and some words by me about what we do, and why.

Will the website be helpful? Will expressing things in my own way (laboring over every word) lead to any misunderstanding? Will misunderstanding be a barrier between us? Yes. Sometimes humans misunderstand each other.

And yet, over time, each of us can help remove barriers through what we continue to choose to do.

With that in mind, here again are the pledge I made in 2019 and the goals I posted last winter, and below them a link to a website built with care by an incredible extended team, for use by anybody who has ever helped someone by sharing what they have or know.

Posted on The Giving Pledge, May 2019:

Posted on Medium, December 2021:

Posted December 2022:

YieldGiving.com

Of and By

MacKenzie Scott — Mon, 14 Nov 2022 16:06:13 GMT

There is a poem by Gwen Nell Westerman that inspires me by shutting me up every time I read it. I had to close my laptop for a couple of days before writing this very short post.

Over the last seven months, with the help of my team, I gave $1,990,800,000 to 343 organizations supporting the voices and opportunities of people from underserved communities. Of special note is that many of the organizations are funds. For anyone similarly interested in supporting the leadership of people from the communities they’re assisting, funds are a great resource. They pool donations and spread them across a diverse group of smaller organizations working toward a common cause. The funds we picked look for teams with lived experience in the issues they’re addressing, as we did when selecting the other non-profits in this giving cycle, and the 1,200+ recipients before them, many of which are also funds. You can learn more about any of them in the database we’ll be releasing soon, with information supplied by their own teams, and mission statements in their own words.

I recently learned a saying used in disability communities: “Nothing about us without us.” For me, it’s another beautiful and powerful reminder. I needn’t ask those I care about what to say to them, or what to do for them. I can share what I have with them to stand behind them as they speak and act for themselves.

Aajeevika Bureau

Access Living

Achieve Atlanta

African Communities Together

Al Otro Lado

Alliance College-Ready Public Schools

Alliance San Diego

Altarum

Amber Charter Schools

America’s Promise Alliance

American Association of People with Disabilities

Ascend Public Charter Schools

Asylum Access

Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP)

Atlas Preparatory School

Autistic Self Advocacy Network

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America

Black Alliance for Just Immigration

Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project

Blue Cross of Idaho Foundation for Health

Bob Hope School

Boston Plan for Excellence (BPE)

Bottom Line

Boys Town

Braven

Breakthrough Collaborative

Bright Star Schools

Brooke Charter Schools

Brothers Empowered to Teach

Busara Center for Behavioral Economics

California Community Foundation — housing and unrestricted

California Pan-Ethnic Health Network

Campaign for Southern Equality

Carmen Schools of Science and Technology

CenterLink: The Community of LGBT Centers

Charter School Growth Fund

Chicago Public Schools

Chinese-American Planning Council

Choose Love

Cleveland Metropolitan School District

Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA)

Cohere

College Access: Research & Action (CARA)

Collegiate Academies

Community Academies of New Orleans

Complete College America

Comunidades Indigenas En Liderazgo

Con Alma Health Foundation

Coney Island Preparatory Public Charter School

Contigo Fund

CORO India

Cushing Public Schools

Dakota Medical Foundation

Danville Regional Foundation

Define American

Desmond Tutu Health Foundation

Detroit Public Schools Community District

Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services

Digital Empowerment Foundation

Durham Public Schools

Educate!

EnAble India

Endowment for Health

Episcopal Health Foundation

Equality Federation Institute

Escondido Union School District

Evidence Action

Excel Academy Charter Schools

Excellence Community Schools

Eye to Eye

Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement

Family Focused Treatment Association (FFTA)

Family Life Academy Charter Schools

FirstLine Schools

Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project

Fondo Lunaria Mujer

Food for Education

Foro Internacional de Mujeres Indígenas (FIMI)

Foundation for Amazon Sustainability (FAS)

Foundation for Ecological Security

Four Freedoms Fund

Freedom Prep Charter Schools

Fresno Unified School District

Friends of the Children

Generation Teach

GIRE

Girl Scouts of the USA

GLAAD

Global Development Incubator

Global Fund for Children

Global Fund for Community Foundations

Global Greengrants Fund

Grand Prairie Independent School District

Grantmakers In Health

Greater Watertown Community Health Foundation

GSA Network

Haitian Bridge Alliance

Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator

Headwaters Foundation

Health Forward Foundation

Health Foundation for Western and Central New York

Healthcare Georgia Foundation

Henderson Collegiate

HIVE Preparatory School

Hmong American Peace Academy

Ibtada

Immigrant Legal Resource Center

Immigrants Rising

India Health Action Trust

Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)

InspireNOLA Charter Schools

Instituto de Liderazgo Simone de Beauvoir (ILSB)

Instituto Socioambiental (ISA)

International Initiative for Impact Evaluation

Jefferson County Public Schools

Junior Achievement USA

Justice In Motion

Kansas City Teacher Residency

Killeen Independent School District

Kings River Union Elementary

KIPP Colorado Public Schools

KIPP Metro Atlanta Schools

KIPP SoCal Public Schools

KIPP St. Louis Public Schools

Laboratoria

Latino Coalition for Community Leadership

LEARN Charter School Network

Lindsay Unified School District

Luminos Fund

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service

Maine Health Access Foundation

Make the Road New York

Marion County School District

Mary Black Foundation

Mat-Su Health Foundation

Metro Early College High School

Mission Achievement and Success (MAS) Charter School

Montana Healthcare Foundation

Movement Advancement Project

Nashville Teacher Residency

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)

National Children’s Alliance

National Day Laborer Organizing Network

National Disability Institute

National Indian Health Board

National Institute for Children’s Health Quality

National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC)

National LGBTQ Task Force

National Organization on Disability

National Partnership for New Americans

National Partnership for Women & Families

National Urban League

Native American Community Academy

New Paradigm for Education

Noble Network of Charter Schools

One Million Degrees

OneGoal

Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America (OICA)

Opportunity Finance Network

Paramount Schools of Excellence

Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans (PANA)

Paso del Norte Health Foundation

PATH Foundation

PeerForward

Pop Culture Collaborative

Rocky Mountain Preparatory Schools

Sallie B. Howard School of Arts & Science

Santa Gertrudis Independent School District

Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples

South Texas Independent School District

Springboard Collaborative

St. Louis Teacher Residency

Student Leadership Network

Study Hall Educational Foundation (SHEF)

Sunflower Foundation

Swasti Health Catalyst

Sylvia Rivera Law Project

Tacoma Public Schools

Teach For America

Texoma Health Foundation

The Aangan Trust

The Academy Charter School

The Alleghany Foundation

The Assisi Foundation of Memphis

The Center for Learner Equity

The Greater Clark Foundation

The Other Foundation

The Rapides Foundation

The TransLatin@ Coalition

Third Wave Fund

TKO Society

Trans Justice Funding Project

Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund

Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico

Vibrant Emotional Health

Visión y Compromiso

VisionSpring

Vista College Preparatory

Water For People

White River School District 47–1

Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO)

Women’s Refugee Commission

Workers Defense Project

Helping Any of Us Can Help Us All

MacKenzie Scott — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 12:39:10 GMT

The increasing stridency of opinions in the news can be divisive. But lately I’ve heard something different in it. Turned up so loud, all I can notice is how similar it all sounds. The universal tendency to shout is an ironic reminder of how much we all have in common, as well as encouraging evidence that we have what we need to solve our shared problems. It’s as if the antidote is right there waiting in all that venom. We are all human. And we all have enormous energy to devote to helping and protecting those we love.

It’s easy to think of different groups struggling within the same systems as not only separate, but also opposing. Yet when we help one group, we often help them all. A growing body of research on this contains numerous examples — bike lanes designed to protect cyclists improving local retail sales and property values for everyone, seatbelt laws adopted to protect young children saving the lives of people of all ages, students of all ethnicities achieving better learning outcomes at schools that are racially diverse, workforce and education opportunities for women and girls leading to global economic growth. And those are just the positive ripple effects that can be easily counted. The dividends of changes in attitude each time disparate groups help each other are harder to trace. But the trend line is clear. Communities with a habit of removing obstacles for different subsets of people tend to get better for everyone.

Below is a list of gift recipients since my post in June, 465 non-profits converting $3,863,125,000 into meaningful services for others. Our team’s focus over these last nine months has included some new areas, but as always our aim has been to support the needs of underrepresented people from groups of all kinds. The cause of equity has no sides.

Nor can it have a single solution. Equity can only be realized when all people involved have an opportunity to help shape it. And even people who spend years learning about the same problem will disagree on the best approach. When our giving team focuses on any system in which people are struggling, we don’t assume that we, or any other single group, can know how to fix it. We don’t advocate for particular policies or reforms. Instead, we seek a portfolio of organizations that supports the ability of all people to participate in solutions. This means a focus on the needs of those whose voices have been underrepresented. It also means including others within the system who want to help improve it, harnessing insights and engagement from every role. Teachers, administrators, parents, and students. Incarcerated people, crime survivors, police officers, and the family members of them all. Veterans and refugees. Kids enrolled in public schools as well as charters. Rural students as well as urban ones. Affordable housing and job training for people in any geography. Healthcare for people with circumstances and beliefs of every kind. Very few solutions gain universal agreement. I don’t know the best outcome of each debate, but there’s heartening evidence that supporting the capacity of all people to be heard leads to better outcomes for all.

This belief in a diversity of voices also inspires our commitment to a vital category of leaders. The leadership of people directly experiencing inequities is essential, both because it is informed by insights no one else can contribute, and because it seeds power and opportunity within the community itself. Yet only a tiny fraction of global humanitarian assistance today is given directly to local and national organizations, and to organizations focused on the disproportionate challenges experienced by women and girls. Though we support many great organizations doing work for groups distant or different from their own, we invest extra time and money to elevate high-impact teams with leadership from the communities they’re serving. Approximately 60% of the organizations listed below are led by women, and 75% by people with lived experience in the regions they support and the issues they seek to address.

A belief in a diversity of voices drives my own communication choices as well. It’s what inspired me to override a personal preference for privacy and write a series of essays that bring attention to the work of these organizations. It’s what motivated my recent decision to invite them to speak for themselves first, if they want to, before I share their names. It’s what underlies my approach to press inquiries — respecting the autonomy and role of journalists by doing nothing to try to influence or control what they report. And it’s what governs the pace and design of the website we’re creating, which will go live only after it reflects the preferences of every one of these non-profit teams about how details of their gifts are shared.

We look forward to sharing the work of these remarkable organizations through this database of their gifts, 1257 to date since my pledge to give away this money with steadiness and care. Each non-profit it will list was selected through a rigorous process, and has a strong track record of serving under-supported needs. If you are looking for a way to serve humanity’s common cause, every one of them is a great candidate. Helping any of us can help us all.

A New Way of Life

Achievement Network

Active Minds

African Population and Health Research Center

African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF)

Alliance for a Healthier Generation

Amani Global Works

Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum

BellXcel

Benefits Data Trust

Bipartisan Policy Center

Black Teacher Collaborative

Black Women’s Health Imperative

Blue Meridian Partners — The Justice and Mobility Fund

Blue Star Families

Blue Ventures

Bob Woodruff Foundation

Boys & Girls Clubs of America

· Boys & Girls Club of Benton Harbor

· Boys & Girls Club of Collier County

· Boys & Girls Club of the Northern Neck

· Boys & Girls Club of the West Valley

· Boys & Girls Club of Whittier

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Acadiana

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Carlsbad

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Orange Coast

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Texas

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Dane County

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Edinburg Rio Grande Valley

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Fresno County

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Garden Grove

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Augusta

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Dallas

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater High Point

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Oxnard and Port Hueneme

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater St. Louis

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Tarrant County

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Hartford

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Lanier

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Manatee County

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Mercer County

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Miami-Dade

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Monterey County

· Boys & Girls Clubs of North Alabama

· Boys & Girls Clubs of North Central Georgia

· Boys & Girls Clubs of North Louisiana

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Florida

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Oklahoma County

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Sonoma-Marin

· Boys & Girls Clubs of South County

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeast Virginia

· Boys & Girls Clubs of the Golden Triangle

· Boys & Girls Clubs of the Los Angeles Harbor

· Boys & Girls Clubs of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians

· Boys & Girls Clubs of the Mississippi Delta

· Boys & Girls Clubs of the Pee Dee Area

· Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula

· Boys & Girls Clubs of the Seminole Tribe of Florida

· Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tar River Region

· Boys & Girls Clubs of the Three Affiliated Tribes

· Boys & Girls Clubs of the Twin Cities

· Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Toledo

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Tucson

· Boys & Girls Clubs of Wake County

· Boys & Girls Clubs of West San Gabriel Valley and Eastside

· Cherokee Youth Center

· Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club

· Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina Boys & Girls Clubs

· Marguerite Neel Williams Boys & Girls Clubs of Southwest Georgia

· Red Lake Nation Boys & Girls Club

· The Antelope Valley Boys & Girls Club

· White Earth Nation Boys & Girls Clubs

BRAC

Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity

BrazilFoundation

CARE — Ukraine relief efforts

Center for Black Educator Development

Center for Disaster Philanthropy — Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis Recovery Fund

Center for Health Care Strategies

Center for Law and Social Policy

Center for Rural Strategies

Center for Science in the Public Interest

Center for Tech and Civic Life

ChangeLab Solutions

Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science

Child Mind Institute

Child Trends

Children’s Home Society of North Carolina

Children’s Home Society of Washington

Choose Love — Ukraine relief efforts

Citizen Schools

City Year

Clean Slate Initiative

Climate Justice Resilience Fund

ClimateWorks Foundation — Drive Electric Campaign

Code for America

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)

Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity

Common Justice

Communities for Just Schools Fund

Communities In Schools National

· Communities In Schools — Bay Area

· Communities In Schools of Atlanta

· Communities In Schools of Benton-Franklin

· Communities In Schools of Cape Fear

· Communities In Schools of Central Texas

· Communities In Schools of Charlotte-Mecklenburg

· Communities In Schools of Chicago

· Communities In Schools of East Texas

· Communities In Schools of Eastern Pennsylvania

· Communities In Schools of Georgia

· Communities In Schools of Greater Tarrant County

· Communities In Schools of Hampton Roads

· Communities In Schools of Houston

· Communities In Schools of Indiana

· Communities In Schools of Los Angeles (CISLA)

· Communities In Schools of Memphis

· Communities In Schools of Michigan

· Communities In Schools of Mid-America

· Communities In Schools of Nevada

· Communities In Schools of North Carolina

· Communities In Schools of North Texas

· Communities In Schools of Northwest Michigan

· Communities In Schools of NOVA

· Communities In Schools of Ohio

· Communities In Schools of Palm Beach County

· Communities In Schools of Peninsula

· Communities In Schools of Pennsylvania

· Communities In Schools of Renton-Tukwila

· Communities In Schools of San Antonio

· Communities In Schools of South Carolina

· Communities In Schools of South Central Texas

· Communities In Schools of Southeast Texas

· Communities In Schools of Southwest Virginia

· Communities In Schools of Tennessee

· Communities In Schools of the Big Country

· Communities In Schools of the Dallas Region

· Communities In Schools of the Heart of Texas

· Communities In Schools of the South Plains

· Communities In Schools of Virginia

· Communities In Schools of Washington

Community Catalyst

Community Justice Exchange — National Bail Fund Network

Community Organizing and Family Issues

Conectas Direitos Humanos

Convergence Center for Policy Resolution

Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption

de Beaumont Foundation — Vose River Charitable Fund

DigDeep

Digital Promise

Diverse Elders Coalition

Education Law Center

Education Leaders of Color

EL Education

Equal Justice Initiative

Equal Opportunity Schools

Equality Now

Essie Justice Group

exalt

Fines and Fees Justice Center

Firelight Foundation

First Responders Children’s Foundation

Fondo Centroamericano de Mujeres

Fondo de Mujeres del Sur

FoodCorps

Forward Promise

Fountain House

Four Oaks Family and Children’s Services

FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund

Friendship Bench

Fugees Family

Fund for Global Human Rights

Fundo Baobá

Fundo Brasil de Direitos Humanos (Brazil Human Rights Fund)

Fundo Casa Socioambiental

Fundo ELAS

Gerando Falcões

Glasswing International

Global Citizen Year

Global Health Corps

Grassroots International

Guttmacher Institute

Habitat for Humanity International

· Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity

· Atlanta Habitat for Humanity

· Austin Habitat for Humanity

· Chipola Area Habitat for Humanity

· Columbus Area Habitat for Humanity

· Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity

· DuPage Habitat for Humanity

· Edisto Habitat for Humanity

· Fayetteville Area Habitat for Humanity

· Flower City Habitat for Humanity

· Genesee County Habitat for Humanity

· Golden Crescent Habitat for Humanity

· Greater Des Moines Habitat for Humanity

· Gwinnett/Walton Habitat for Humanity

· Habitat for Humanity Central Arizona

· Habitat for Humanity Chicago

· Habitat for Humanity Choptank

· Habitat for Humanity East Central Ohio

· Habitat for Humanity for Georgetown County, SC

· Habitat for Humanity Greater Orlando & Osceola County

· Habitat for Humanity Greater Peoria Area

· Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco

· Habitat for Humanity Inland Valley

· Habitat for Humanity La Crosse Area

· Habitat for Humanity Las Vegas

· Habitat for Humanity Maui

· Habitat for Humanity MetroWest/Greater Worcester

· Habitat for Humanity of Broward

· Habitat for Humanity of Buffalo

· Habitat for Humanity of Catawba Valley

· Habitat for Humanity of Clallam County

· Habitat for Humanity of Coastal Fairfield County

· Habitat for Humanity of Craven County

· Habitat for Humanity of Durham

· Habitat for Humanity of Dutchess County

· Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville

· Habitat for Humanity of Greater Cincinnati

· Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles

· Habitat for Humanity of Greater Memphis

· Habitat for Humanity of Greater Miami

· Habitat for Humanity of Greater Newark

· Habitat for Humanity of Greater Newburgh

· Habitat for Humanity of Greater Pittsburgh

· Habitat for Humanity of Greater Sacramento

· Habitat for Humanity of Greater Sioux Falls

· Habitat for Humanity of Hillsborough County

· Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver

· Habitat for Humanity of Oakland County

· Habitat for Humanity of Omaha

· Habitat for Humanity of Orange County, NC

· Habitat for Humanity of Pinellas & West Pasco Counties

· Habitat for Humanity of South Central New Jersey

· Habitat for Humanity of Suffolk

· Habitat for Humanity of Summit County

· Habitat for Humanity of the Charlotte Region

· Habitat for Humanity of the NC Sandhills

· Habitat for Humanity of the St. Vrain Valley

· Habitat for Humanity of Tuscaloosa

· Habitat for Humanity of Washington, D.C.

· Habitat for Humanity of York County

· Habitat for Humanity Philadelphia

· Habitat for Humanity Portland Region

· Habitat for Humanity Seattle–King & Kittitas Counties

· Habitat for Humanity Seminole-Apopka

· Habitat for Humanity Susquehanna

· Habitat for Humanity-MidOhio

· Houston County Habitat for Humanity

· Houston Habitat for Humanity

· Kaua’i Habitat For Humanity

· Lafayette Habitat for Humanity

· Loudon County Habitat for Humanity

· Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity

· New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity

· Paterson Habitat for Humanity

· Richmond Metropolitan Habitat for Humanity

· South Puget Sound Habitat for Humanity

· Southern Crescent Habitat for Humanity

· Sussex County Habitat for Humanity

· Tacoma/Pierce County Habitat for Humanity

· Topeka Habitat for Humanity

· Trinity Habitat for Humanity

· Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity

· Waco Habitat for Humanity

· Wichita Habitat for Humanity

Headstrong Project

Health Leads

Healthy Learners

HIAS — Ukraine relief efforts

Hire Heroes USA

Housing Assistance Council

Institute for Educational Leadership

Institute for Native Pacific Education and Culture

Instituto Dara

Instituto Rodrigo Mendes

Instituto Sou da Paz

Instruction Partners

International Association of Chiefs of Police

International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b)

International Refugee Assistance Project

Ipso — International Psychosocial Organisation

Kenya Community Development Foundation

KFF

Kingmakers of Oakland

Landesa

Last Mile Health

Latinos for Education

Law Enforcement Action Partnership

Leading Educators

LEAP Africa

Learning Policy Institute

Meharry Medical College

Micronesia Conservation Trust

Migrant Clinicians Network

myAgro

National 4-H Council

National Association of Community Health Centers

National Association of Police Athletic/Activities Leagues

National Birth Equity Collaborative

National Black Child Development Institute

National Collaborative for Health Equity

National Compadres Network

National Council for Mental Wellbeing

National Council on Aging

National Hispanic Council on Aging

National Indian Council on Aging

National Indian Education Association

National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice

National Medical Fellowships

National Policing Institute

National Rural Health Association

New Leaders

New Pluralists Collaborative

New Teacher Center

NewSchools Venture Fund

Nexleaf Analytics

Nia Tero

Noora Health

Norwegian Refugee Council — Ukraine relief efforts

Nossas

Notah Begay III Foundation

NPower

Nurse-Family Partnership

Operation Homefront

Organizer Zero

OutRight Action International — Ukraine relief efforts

Partners for Dignity & Rights

Pastoral Women’s Council

Pawanka Fund

Penn Center

PHI

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

· Planned Parenthood Association of Utah

· Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette

· Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast

· Planned Parenthood Keystone

· Planned Parenthood North Central States

· Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio

· Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho

· Planned Parenthood of Illinois

· Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan New Jersey

· Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, DC

· Planned Parenthood of Montana

· Planned Parenthood of Southern New England

· Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida

· Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio Region

· Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Oregon

· Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest

· Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains

· Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region & Southwest Missouri

· Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin

· Planned Parenthood South Atlantic

· Virginia League for Planned Parenthood

Playworks

Police Executive Research Forum

Politize! — Instituto de Educação Política

Pressley Ridge

Prevention Institute

Project ECHO at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center

Projeto Saúde e Alegria

Prospera International Network of Women’s Funds

Rights and Resources Initiative

Schott Foundation for Public Education

SELCO Foundation

Shatterproof

Sightsavers

Silver Lining Mentoring

SisterSong National Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective

Sociedad Peruana de Derecho Ambiental

Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa

Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)

Southern Education Foundation

Stand for Children Leadership Center

Student Experience Research Network

Student Veterans of America

Surge Institute

Talent Beyond Boundaries

TalkingPoints

Teaching Lab

Team Red, White & Blue

Team Rubicon

Tenure Facility

The Anti-Recidivism Coalition

The END Fund

The Fortune Society

The High Resolves Group

The Jed Foundation

The Literacy Lab

The Memphis Lift

The Mission Continues

Transitions Clinic Network

Trust for America’s Health

Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health (TICAH)

Tunnel to Towers Foundation

UnboundEd

United States of Care

United Way Worldwide

Upstream USA

Urban Teachers

Urgent Action Fund — Urgent Response Fund for Ukraine

Vera Institute of Justice

Vetor Brasil

VillageReach

Warrior-Scholar Project

Wayfinder Foundation

West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI)

Women Win

Women’s Fund Asia

Woodwell Climate Research Center

Workshops for Warriors

World Mosquito Program

Wounded Warrior Project

Young People in Recovery

Youth Development and Empowerment Initiative

Youth Guidance

Youth Villages

YouthBuild

No Poetry This Time

MacKenzie Scott — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 16:24:58 GMT

Disclosures, self and otherwise

A follow-up to an essay I published Wednesday:

I’m a slow writer and a private person, so maybe it’s fitting that a postscript on the value of sharing information begins with that confession, and ends with three screenshots from my laptop that tell a story it might otherwise take me a week to figure out how to express.

Two years ago I wrote a letter about the safe full of personal resources we all have to draw from to help others (e.g. time, creativity, compassion). This is the copy I keep on my desk, with 2 important additions I later made to remind me to share them:

Next is a paragraph I wish I hadn’t cut from the essay I posted Wednesday. I edited it out to keep focus on the voices of non-profit teams who might want to tell their own stories, but the omission could leave room for confusion about my intention to share information about these gifts myself. Although I may write essays on other topics, my commitment to sharing information about my own giving has never wavered. I will continue to post updates twice every twelve months or so.

And last is a screenshot from my early working list of goals for the website we’ve been working toward launching at some point next year. We’ve been doing our best to maximize our first two years of giving, while sharing information in a way that supports non-profits and informs the broader community. We want to and will share more:

No Dollar Signs This Time

MacKenzie Scott — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 18:43:05 GMT

Sometimes what’s going on in the world or in my work brings a line of poetry repeatedly to mind, but just as often it’s a single word. Lately the one I keep turning over is “philanthropy.”

It’s not a word I have ever loved or identified with. A lifetime of cultural references associated it with financially wealthy people who believed they knew best how to solve other people’s problems. Since I did not believe myself to be such a person, I had always felt more kinship with people who offered a couch when someone said they needed a couch.

So I was surprised to discover that dictionary definitions of philanthropy are so inclusive and beautiful: “love of humankind”; “the desire to promote the welfare of others”; “generous donation of money to good causes”; “work of practical beneficence.” What had happened? Somewhere along the line, this big, lovely word had shriveled to describing the humanitarian impulses of less than 1% of the world’s population. When did the rich become the only people with a “desire to promote the welfare of others”? Which is a more “generous donation of money to good causes” — 100 dollars from someone who earns 50,000 a year, or 100,000 from someone with 50 million in the bank? How did the only “work of practical beneficence” worth acknowledging become writing checks?

Language experts call this kind of change in the meaning of a word semantic narrowing. Apparently once upon a time “girl” meant any young person, “deer” meant any animal, and “art” meant any skill. But none of these narrowed words disappoint me. They didn’t come to signify something diminished, just something more specific, and specificity is often more beautiful. The problem is that half the beauty of the original meaning of “philanthropy” was in its breadth. It’s as if we had taken the word “love” and reduced it to mean only familial love, or only romantic love, cutting out the love we feel for friends, or food, or sunsets, or strangers.

Even by the traditional yardstick — money — contributions to the welfare of others by financially wealthy people don’t merit disproportionate attention. To use the United States as an example, the total donated to U.S. charities in 2020 was 471 billion. Of this, nearly a third was given in increments under 5,000 dollars. In addition to these gifts few people picture when they think of philanthropy, there was 68 billion in financial support to family members in other countries (hard to track and likely way underreported), tens of billions in crowdfunding, nearly 200 billion in volunteer labor at non-profits, and 670 billion in wages for the paid employees who deliver those non-profit services. That’s over a trillion dollars in “donation of money to good causes” and “work of practical beneficence.” That trillion far exceeds contributions by the tiny segment of the population still being acknowledged and colloquially called “philanthropists.”

And that trillion is only a fraction of the value pumped into the generosity economy by the other 99%.

What’s getting left out?

The biggest omission is probably informal person-to-person giving. In a 2020 survey about generous behavior, over 70% of Americans reported giving both labor and money to people they know, and half reported doing the same for strangers. This represents billions of dollars no one seems to be counting.

What else? Voice. Millions of people participated in racial justice demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd last year. Millions more use their voices spontaneously in moments of discrimination in an office or at school. To my knowledge, no one is quantifying the value of organized and informal humanitarian speech and demonstration either.

The multiplier effect on the social and economic value of both of these forms of giving is gigantic. Generosity engages the same pleasure centers in the brain as sex, food, and receiving gifts, and it improves our health and long-term happiness as well. Just as spending in a store triggers a long chain of spending outside the store (gas for customers, lunch at the mall, supplies for the food court), the kindness in one unexpected hour of free snow-shoveling for a sick neighbor may trigger a domino effect of gratitude- and gratification-inspired kindnesses that could go on for years. Seeing someone speak up on your behalf is just as likely to inspire you to act on behalf of others, especially if that speech helps secure rights that enable you to do it.

I have seen economists focus on the costs of change-making efforts (reduction in property values or decreased business activity from protests, for example), but the immediate and knock-on benefits of humanitarian speech and compassionate action rarely get mentioned. While many of the returns — confidence, insight, and empathy, for example — are difficult to measure, many others — such as improved health outcomes — are not. Maybe someday someone will shine a quantitative spotlight on some of these, or find new ways of capturing their impact. In the 1970’s an economist named Marilyn Waring traveled around the world studying a form of labor that economists weren’t even acknowledging as an omission in their calculations, and concluded that if you hired workers at the market rate to do all the unpaid work women do, it would be the biggest sector of the global economy.

The historical omission of so many forms of generous action from our economic calculations of philanthropic value may be understandable. But their exclusion from a durable cultural concept of collective humanitarian contribution is baffling to me. I suspect our very compulsion to count and categorize and rate things is part of the problem. We tend to give more focus to things we can tally, and to rank everything else. Why does one form of compassionate action, one group of beneficiaries, one group of givers have to be more important than the others? Financially valuable versus socially valuable. Generosity to strangers versus generosity to friends and family. An employee at a non-profit takes leave from that care work to care for a dying parent. A traveler cut off from her usual volunteer work on a month overseas helps an isolated elderly neighbor get a cell phone she can use to talk to her kids. A volunteer isolated by the pandemic makes sandwiches and drives them to a road newly lined with tents and RVs in his town.

This is all philanthropy.

And so is the effort of every team member — staff or consultant, professional advisor or grassroots field worker, formally contracted or informally polled, paid or unpaid, long-term or short-term, full-time or part-time or one-time — in the big, non-traditional network of people generously helping me with my giving.

And so is the effort of all the employees and volunteers at every one of the non-profits we give to.

And so is donating your old furniture to a local shelter, or speaking up for a bullied classmate, or shoveling your sick neighbor’s driveway, or staying after the school dance to help stack chairs.

How much or how little money changes hands doesn’t make it philanthropy. Intention and effort make it philanthropy. If we acknowledge what it all has in common, there will be more of it. That’s why I keep referring to what I’m doing as “giving”, a word still being used to describe what humans have been doing with their time, focus, food, cash, and trust to lift each other up for thousands of years. It’s also why I’m not including here any amounts of money I’ve donated since my prior posts. I want to let each of these incredible teams speak for themselves first if they choose to, with the hope that when they do, media focuses on their contributions instead of mine.

In the meantime, I hope any attention from this writing falls on what I have in common with every person who ever acted on an impulse to help someone. Two years ago I wrote a letter about the safe full of resources we all have to draw from, including the beliefs and experiences that shape how each of us chooses to give. I wanted to give away more money, at a faster rate, to serve a wider diversity of under-supported causes and people, with greater effectiveness than I have the perspective and capacity to give alone. For me, this meant trusting the effort and perspective of a diverse team of staff and advisors, who in turn trust the effort and perspective of field experts, funders, and non-profit practitioners drawing on decades of experiences of their own. Together we trust the track records of impact and on-the-ground insights of hundreds of carefully selected teams working from within communities, offering them all the money up front and then stepping out of their way, encouraging them to spend it however they choose. I understand that this approach, and probably any approach, will mean having given to organizations that might make choices I wouldn’t make myself, but that’s the point. I believe the gifts will do more good if others are free from my ideas about what they should do. And this trust — another resource it’s difficult to measure — is the aspect of gifts that many have said they value most.

This approach to philanthropy is not the only way. It’s just the one my resources and opportunities inspired in me.

If you think you know how much impact might flow from acting on any of your own impulses to give, you are almost certainly wrong. Whose generosity did I think of when I made every one of the hundreds of gifts I’ve given so far? It was the local dentist who offered me free dental work when he saw me securing a broken tooth with denture glue in college. It was the college roommate who found me crying, and acted on her urge to loan me a thousand dollars to keep me from having to drop out sophomore year. And after she saw the difference she made in my life, what was she inspired to do, twenty years later? Start a company that offers loans to low-income students without a co-signer. And how quickly did I jump at the opportunity to support her dream of supporting students like she once supported me? And to whom will each of the thousands of students thriving on those gratitude-powered student loans go on to give? None of us has any idea.

Each unique expression of generosity will have value far beyond what we can imagine or live to see.

Seeding by Ceding

MacKenzie Scott — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 13:46:46 GMT

Sitting down to write this post, I felt stuck. I want to de-emphasize privileged voices and cede focus to others, yet I know some media stories will focus on wealth. The headline I would wish for this post is “286 Teams Empowering Voices the World Needs to Hear.”

People struggling against inequities deserve center stage in stories about change they are creating. This is equally — perhaps especially — true when their work is funded by wealth. Any wealth is a product of a collective effort that included them. The social structures that inflate wealth present obstacles to them. And despite those obstacles, they are providing solutions that benefit us all.

Putting large donors at the center of stories on social progress is a distortion of their role. We are attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change. My team’s efforts 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. Though we still have a lot to learn about how to act on these beliefs without contradicting and subverting them, we can begin by acknowledging that people working to build power from within communities are the agents of change. Their service supports and empowers people who go on to support and empower others.

Because community-centered service is such a powerful catalyst and multiplier, we spent the first quarter of 2021 identifying and evaluating equity-oriented non-profit teams working in areas that have been neglected. The result was $2,739,000,000 in gifts to 286 high-impact organizations in categories and communities that have been historically underfunded and overlooked.

Higher education is a proven pathway to opportunity, so we looked for 2- and 4-year institutions successfully educating students who come from communities that have been chronically underserved.

Discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities has been deepening, so we assessed organizations bridging divides through interfaith support and collaboration.

Arts and cultural institutions can strengthen communities by transforming spaces, fostering empathy, reflecting community identity, advancing economic mobility, improving academic outcomes, lowering crime rates, and improving mental health, so we evaluated smaller arts organizations creating these benefits with artists and audiences from culturally rich regions and identity groups that donors often overlook.

Over 700 million people globally still live in extreme poverty. To find solutions, we all benefit from on-the-ground insights and diverse engagement, so we prioritized organizations with local teams, leaders of color, and a specific focus on empowering women and girls.

We also assessed organizations focused on supporting community engagement itself. The 1.6 million non-profits in America employ 10% of our country’s workforce, and 63 million volunteers. While political pendulums swing back and forth, redistributing and re-concentrating wealth, we can choose to fund organizations with the potential to increase the impact of every dollar and hour donated by others. Social sector infrastructure organizations empower community leaders, support grassroots organizing and innovation, measure and evaluate what works, and disseminate information so that community leaders, elected officials, volunteers, employees, and donors at every level of income can make informed decisions about how to partner and invest. These organizations, which are themselves historically underfunded, also promote and facilitate service, which in turn inspires more people to serve.

We chose to make relatively large gifts to the organizations named below, both to enable their work, and as a signal of trust and encouragement, to them and to others. Would they still benefit from more (more advocates, more money, more volunteers)? Yes. Like those we shared in July and December of 2020, these 286 teams were selected through a rigorous process of research and analysis. These are people who have spent years successfully advancing humanitarian aims, often without knowing whether there will be any money in their bank accounts in two months. What do we think they might do with more cash on hand than they expected? Buy needed supplies. Find new creative ways to help. Hire a few extra team members they know they can pay for the next five years. Buy chairs for them. Stop having to work every weekend. Get some sleep.

Because we believe that teams with experience on the front lines of challenges will know best how to put the money to good use, we encouraged them to spend it however they choose. Many reported that this trust significantly increased the impact of the gift. There is nothing new about amplifying gifts by yielding control. People have been doing it in living rooms and classrooms and workplaces for thousands of years. It empowers receivers by making them feel valued and by unlocking their best solutions. Generosity is generative. Sharing makes more.

A favorite verse by Rumi captures this well:

“A candle as it diminishes explains,

Gathering more and more is not the way.

Burn, become light and heat and help. Melt.”

317 Main Community Music Center

A Place Called Home

ABFE: A Philanthropic Partnership for Black Communities

Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh Fund

African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund

African Leadership Group

Afrika Tikkun

Alaska Native Heritage Center

Allied Media Projects

Alonzo King LINES Ballet

Alternate ROOTS

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Amarillo College

American Indian College Fund

American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC)

Arts Administrators of Color Network

Arts for Healing and Justice Network

Arts Forward Fund

Arts Midwest

Ashé Cultural Arts Center

Ashoka Innovators for the Public

Asian American Federation

Asian American LEAD

Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy

Asian Pacific Community Fund

Asian Pacific Fund

Atlanta Music Project

Authors League Fund

AWID (Association for Women’s Rights in Development)

Ballet Hispánico

Big Thought

Black Ensemble Theater

Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD)

BoardSource

Borealis Philanthropy

· Black Led Movement Fund

· Communities Transforming Policing Fund

· Disability Inclusion Fund

· Emerging LGBTQ Leaders of Color Fund

· Racial Equity in Journalism Fund

· Racial Equity in Philanthropy Fund

· Racial Equity to Accelerate Change Fund

· Spark Justice Fund

Brazosport College

Broward College

Building Movement Project

CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities

Cal Poly Pomona

California State University Channel Islands

California State University, Fullerton

California State University, Northridge

Candid

Center for Asian American Media

Center for Cultural Innovation

Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP)

Center for Evaluation Innovation

Center of Life

CFLeads

Chaffey Community College

CHANGE Philanthropy

Charity Navigator

Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History

Chicago’s Cultural Treasures

Child in Need Institute (CINI)

Children’s Defense Fund

Chinatown Community Development Center

Chinese for Affirmative Action

Co-Impact Gender Fund

Collage Dance Collective

College of the Desert

Common Counsel Foundation

Common Future

Community MusicWorks

CompassPoint Nonprofit Services

Constellations Culture Change Fund

CUNY Hostos Community College

Dance Theatre of Harlem

David’s Harp

Decolonizing Wealth Project

Digital Green

Donors of Color Network

DonorsChoose

Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation

Dream a Dream

East Bay Fund for Artists

East West Players

El Museo del Barrio

El Paso Community College

Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy

Equal Measure

Equitable Evaluation Initiative

Equity in the Center

Esperanza Peace and Justice Center

Excelencia in Education

Exponent Philanthropy

Faith in Action

Faith in Public Life

Filantropía Puerto Rico

Firelight Media

First Peoples Fund

Flamboyan Arts Fund

Florida International University

Fondo Semillas

Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants COVID-19 Funds

FSG

Fund for Shared Insight

Funders for LGBTQ Issues

Grantmakers for Effective Organizations

GreenLight Fund

Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center

HIAS

Homeboy Industries

Hyde Square Task Force

IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts

IDinsight

Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN)

Institute for Transformative Technologies

Interaction Institute for Social Change

International African American Museum

Jan Sahas

Japanese American National Museum

Jazz at Lincoln Center

L.A. Arts Endowment Fund

Lee College

Leeway Foundation

Lever for Change

Long Beach City College

Los Cenzontles Cultural Arts Academy

Lwala Community Alliance

Magic Bus

Maine Expansion Arts Fund

Mama Foundation for the Arts

Management Leadership for Tomorrow

Mann Deshi Foundation

MDRC

Memphis Music Initiative

MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership

Metro IAF

Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund

Mexic-Arte Museum

Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation

Mid-America Arts Alliance

Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College

Mosaic Network and Fund

Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit

mothers2mothers

Motown Museum

Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico

Museum of Chinese in America

Muslim Advocates

Muso

Namati

National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures

National Center for Family Philanthropy

National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy

National Council of Nonprofits

National Equity Project

National Museum of Mexican Art

Native Americans in Philanthropy

Native Arts & Cultures Foundation

NDN Collective

Neighborhood Funders Group

Neutral Zone

New City Kids

New England Foundation for the Arts

Oregon Arts and Culture Recovery Fund

OutRight Action International

PA’I Foundation

Partners In Health

Pasadena City College

PEAK Grantmaking

PEN America Writers’ Emergency Fund

Penumbra

Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity

Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN)

Renaissance Youth Center

Renton Technical College

Repair the World

Repairers of the Breach

Results for America

Rise Up

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors

Rockwood Leadership Institute

San Francisco Community Health Center

San Jacinto Community College

Sanku — Project Healthy Children

Santa Barbara City College

Save The Music Foundation

Self Help Graphics & Art

Service Year Alliance

Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO)

Sins Invalid

Sipp Culture

SNEHA (Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action)

Southwest Folklife Alliance

Southwest Texas Junior College

Sphinx Organization

Spy Hop

TechSoup Global

The Antara Foundation

The BOMA Project

The Bridgespan Group

The Center for Cultural Power

The Door

The Education Trust

The Freedom Fund

The Greenlining Institute

The International Association of Blacks in Dance

The Laundromat Project

The Management Center

The Nonprofit Quarterly

The Studio Museum in Harlem

The Theater Offensive

The Urban Institute

The Village of Arts and Humanities

The/Nudge Foundation

Third Sector

Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation

Tostan

Triangle Project

Ubuntu Pathways

United Philanthropy Forum

United States Artists

Unity Productions Foundation

University of California, Merced

University of Central Florida

University of Illinois Chicago

University of Texas at San Antonio

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

West Hills College Lemoore

West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation

Western States Arts Federation

William Rainey Harper College

Wing Luke Museum

Womankind

Women’s Funding Network

Women’s Audio Mission

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA)

Youth Empowerment Project

384 Ways to Help

MacKenzie Scott — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 17:04:46 GMT

Emily Dickinson lived much of her life isolated in a single room, and I’ve found her poetry coming to me a lot this year. Though her isolation was voluntary, I doubt it was easy. Her room overlooked a cemetery, and many of her poems are focused on death.

As the winter of 2020 approached, I might have expected one of those poems to keep floating to mind, but instead it was her writing on hope: “’Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” it begins, “/ That perches in the soul / And sings the song without the words / And never stops — at all -”

Maybe it was the unspoken question she posed at the end from her solitary room: “I’ve heard it in the chillest land / And on the strangest Sea / Yet — never — in Extremity / It asked a crumb — of me.”

So what does hope feed on?

This pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling. Economic losses and health outcomes alike have been worse for women, for people of color, and for people living in poverty. Meanwhile, it has substantially increased the wealth of billionaires.

It would be easy for all the people who drew the long demographic straws in this crisis to hole up at home feeling a mix of gratitude and guilt, and wait for it to be over — but that’s not what’s happening. The proliferation of community fridges, COVID relief funds, impromptu person-to-person Venmo gifts, viral debt relief campaigns, and mutual aid initiatives has been swift and uplifting. In March, a 19-year-old girl in Chicago sent a group text to her friends suggesting they buy supplies for people in their neighborhood who had lost their jobs. She posted two Google forms — one for people who needed help and another for people with help to give — and by two days later they’d raised $7,000. “We’re really excited,” she said.

Me too.

After my post in July, I asked a team of advisors to help me accelerate my 2020 giving through immediate support to people suffering the economic effects of the crisis. They took a data-driven approach to identifying organizations with strong leadership teams and results, with special attention to those operating in communities facing high projected food insecurity, high measures of racial inequity, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital.

The result over the last four months has been $4,158,500,000 in gifts to 384 organizations across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington D.C. Some are filling basic needs: food banks, emergency relief funds, and support services for those most vulnerable. Others are addressing long-term systemic inequities that have been deepened by the crisis: debt relief, employment training, credit and financial services for under-resourced communities, education for historically marginalized and underserved people, civil rights advocacy groups, and legal defense funds that take on institutional discrimination.

To select these 384, the team sought suggestions and perspective from hundreds of field experts, funders, and non-profit leaders and volunteers with decades of experience. We leveraged this collective knowledge base in a collaboration that included hundreds of emails and phone interviews, and thousands of pages of data analysis on community needs, program outcomes, and each non-profit’s capacity to absorb and make effective use of funding. We looked at 6,490 organizations, and undertook deeper research into 822. We put 438 of these on hold for now due to insufficient evidence of impact, unproven management teams, or to allow for further inquiry about specific issues such as treatment of community members or employees. We won’t always learn about a concern inside an organization, but when we do, we’ll take extra time to evaluate. We’ll never eliminate every risk through our analysis, but we’ll eliminate many. Then we can select organizations to assist — and get out of their way.

We do this research and deeper diligence not only to identify organizations with high potential for impact, but also to pave the way for unsolicited and unexpected gifts given with full trust and no strings attached. Because our research is data-driven and rigorous, our giving process can be human and soft. Not only are non-profits chronically underfunded, they are also chronically diverted from their work by fundraising, and by burdensome reporting requirements that donors often place on them. These 384 carefully selected teams have dedicated their lives to helping others, working and volunteering and serving real people face-to-face at bedsides and tables, in prisons and courtrooms and classrooms, on streets and hospital wards and hotlines and frontlines of all types and sizes, day after day after day. They help by delivering vital services, and also through the profound encouragement felt each time a person is seen, valued, and trusted by another human being. This kind of encouragement has a special power when it comes from a stranger, and it works its magic on everyone. We shared each of our gift decisions with program leaders for the first time over the phone, and welcomed them to spend the funding on whatever they believe best serves their efforts. They were told that the entire commitment would be paid upfront and left unrestricted in order to provide them with maximum flexibility. The responses from people who took the calls often included personal stories and tears. These were non-profit veterans from all backgrounds and backstories, talking to us from cars and cabins and COVID-packed houses all over the country — a retired army general, the president of a tribal college recalling her first teaching job on her reservation, a loan fund founder sitting in the makeshift workspace between her washer and dryer from which she had launched her initiative years ago. Their stories and tears invariably made me and my teammates cry.

This kind of chain reaction was captured perfectly by a longtime advocate for people with disabilities: “We work with people who have been marginalized for many reasons… Some of our greatest moments of success come through small gestures when a client’s hope is restored…. Feeling valued is an amazing sensation. I see the eyes of our clients light up when their efforts are appreciated…. Good begets good. I have always believed this, but I have been sorely tested over the past few years.”

Me too.

Our hopes are fed by others.

Though I’m far from completing my pledge, this year of giving began with exposure to leaders from historically marginalized groups fighting inequities, and ended with exposure to thousands of organizations working to alleviate suffering for those hardest hit by the pandemic. Witnessing the determination, creativity, and compassion of people in a crisis has been inspiring: cash cards for farmers in Puerto Rico; direct deposits for furloughed workers without access to employer-based benefits; rental assistance for immigrant families without access to government relief; young volunteers stepping in for vulnerable older ones to deliver millions of meals to newly isolated seniors; shelters and counseling centers forming partnerships to handle the surge in domestic violence; two former debt collections executives enabling donors to anonymously forgive $1,000 in crushing medical debt for struggling families with every gift of $10.

If you’re craving a way to use your time, voice, or money to help others at the end of this difficult year, I highly recommend a gift to one of the thousands of organizations doing remarkable work all across the country. Every one of them could benefit from more resources to share with the communities they’re serving. And the hope you feed with your gift is likely to feed your own.

ACE (Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs)

Alcorn State University

Blackfeet Community College

Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York

Bowie State University

Casa de Esperanza

CEI (Coastal Enterprises, Inc.)

Center for Disaster Philanthropy — COVID-19 Response Fund

Chicago Community Loan Fund

Chief Dull Knife College

Claflin University

Clark Atlanta University

Community First Fund

Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo — COVID-19 Community Recovery

Community Foundation of Greater Memphis — Mid-South COVID-19 Regional Response Fund

Community Foundation of New Jersey — New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund

Community Investment Corporation

Community Reinvestment Fund, USA

Community Vision Capital & Consulting

CommunityWorks

Craft3

Delaware State University

Dillard University

Direct Relief — Fund for Health Equity

Easterseals (National Office)

Easterseals affiliates

· Easterseals Central and Southeast Ohio

· Easterseals Central Illinois

· Easterseals East Georgia

· Easterseals Iowa

· Easterseals Louisiana

· Easterseals Massachusetts

· Easterseals Michigan

· Easterseals Midwest

· Easterseals North Georgia

· Easterseals Northeast Central Florida

· Easterseals of Greater Houston

· Easterseals Rehabilitation Center, San Antonio

· Easterseals Rehabilitation Center, West Virginia

· Easterseals serving Chicagoland and Greater Rockford

· Easterseals serving Greater Cincinnati

· Easterseals South Florida

· Easterseals Southeastern Pennsylvania

· Easterseals Southwest Florida

· Easterseals Tennessee

· Easterseals Washington

· Southwest Human Development

Elizabeth City State University

Enterprise Community Partners

Families and Workers Fund

Family Independence Initiative — COVID-19 Response

Feeding America (National Office)

Feeding America member food banks

· America’s Second Harvest of the Big Bend

· Arkansas Foodbank

· Banco de Alimentos de Puerto Rico

· Central California Food Bank

· Coastal Bend Food Bank

· Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma

· East Texas Food Bank

· El Pasoans Fighting Hunger

· Feeding the Gulf Coast

· Feeding the Valley Food Bank

· Food Bank of Alaska

· Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina

· Food Bank of Central Louisiana

· Food Bank of Eastern Michigan

· Food Bank of Northeast Arkansas

· Food Bank of Northwest Louisiana

· Food Bank of the Albemarle

· Foodbank of Northeast Louisiana

· Forgotten Harvest

· God’s Pantry Food Bank

· Golden Harvest Food Bank

· Good Shepherd Food Bank of Maine

· Greater Cleveland Food Bank

· Harvest Regional Food Bank

· MANNA FoodBank

· Mississippi Food Network

· Montgomery Area Food Bank

· Mountaineer Food Bank

· Ozarks Food Harvest

· Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma

· Roadrunner Food Bank

· San Antonio Food Bank

· Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee

· Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana

· Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Tennessee

· Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley

· South Texas Food Bank

· Southeast Ohio Foodbank

· Southeast Texas Food Bank

· Three Square Food Bank

· Vermont Foodbank

· Wichita Falls Area Food Bank

Food Research and Action Center

Genesis LA

GiveDirectly — Project 100+

Global Fund for Women

Goodwill Industries (National Office)

Goodwill affiliates

· Goodwill Easterseals Miami Valley

· Goodwill Gulf Coast

· Goodwill Hawaii

· Goodwill Houston

· Goodwill Industries — Knoxville

· Goodwill Industries of Akron, Ohio

· Goodwill Industries of Central Illinois

· Goodwill Industries of Dallas

· Goodwill Industries of East Texas

· Goodwill Industries of Fort Worth

· Goodwill Industries of Greater Grand Rapids

· Goodwill Industries of Kansas

· Goodwill Industries of Kentucky

· Goodwill Industries of Michiana

· Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee

· Goodwill Industries of New Mexico

· Goodwill Industries of North Florida

· Goodwill Industries of Northern Illinois

· Goodwill Industries of Northern New England

· Goodwill Industries of Northwest North Carolina

· Goodwill Industries of San Antonio

· Goodwill Industries of San Diego County

· Goodwill Industries of Southeastern Louisiana

· Goodwill Industries of Southeastern Wisconsin

· Goodwill Industries of the Columbia Willamette

· Goodwill Industries of the Inland Northwest

· Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont

· Goodwill Industries of the Southern Rivers

· Goodwill Industries of the Valleys

· Goodwill Industries of Upstate/Midlands South Carolina

· Goodwill Keystone Area

· Goodwill Manasota

· Goodwill Northern Michigan

· Goodwill of Central and Coastal Virginia

· Goodwill of Colorado

· Goodwill of Greater Cleveland and East Central Ohio

· Goodwill of Middle Georgia & the CSRA

· Goodwill of North Georgia

· Goodwill of Silicon Valley

· Goodwill of Southeast Georgia

· Goodwill of the Finger Lakes

· Goodwill of the Heartland

· Goodwill of the Southern Alleghenies

· Goodwill Serving the People of Southern Los Angeles County

· Heart of Texas Goodwill Industries

· Southern Oregon Goodwill Industries

Grantmakers Concerned With Immigrants and Refugees — California Immigrant Resilience Fund

Greater Minnesota Housing Fund

Hawai’i Community Foundation — Hawai’i Resilience Fund

Hispanic Federation — Emergency Assistance Fund

Hispanics in Philanthropy

Housing Development Fund

IFF

Indian River State College Foundation

Institute of American Indian Arts

Invest Detroit

Lake Area Technical College

Lambda Legal

Latino Community Credit Union / Latino Community Development Center

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

Lehman College, City University of New York

LiftFund

Lincoln University

Meals on Wheels America (National Office)

Meals on Wheels member programs

· Hawai’i Meals on Wheels

· Meals on Wheels Atlanta

· Meals on Wheels Central Texas

· Meals on Wheels Diablo Region

· Meals on Wheels Durham

· Meals on Wheels Foundation of Northern Illinois

· Meals on Wheels Greenville County

· Meals on Wheels Montgomery County

· Meals on Wheels North Central Texas

· Meals on Wheels of Albuquerque

· Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland

· Meals on Wheels of Eastern Kansas

· Meals on Wheels of Metro Tulsa

· Meals on Wheels of Northwest Indiana

· Meals on Wheels of Rhode Island

· Meals on Wheels of Southwest Ohio & Northern Kentucky

· Meals on Wheels of Staten Island

· Meals on Wheels of Tampa

· Meals on Wheels of the Greater Lehigh Valley

· Meals on Wheels of Wake County

· Meals on Wheels People

· Meals on Wheels Plus

· Meals on Wheels PLUS of Manatee

· Meals On Wheels Programs & Services of Rockland

· Meals on Wheels San Diego County

· Meals on Wheels San Francisco

· Meals on Wheels South Florida

· Meals on Wheels Texoma

· Meals on Wheels Western South Dakota

· Natrona County Meals on Wheels

Mission Asset Fund — Immigrant Families Fund

Mitchell Technical College

Morgan State University

Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles

Ms. Foundation for Women

NAACP

National Urban Indian Family Coalition

National Women’s Law Center

Navajo & Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund

Navajo Technical University

New Hampshire Charitable Foundation — Community Crisis Action Fund

Nonprofit Finance Fund

Norfolk State University

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

Northeast Community College

Palo Alto College, Alamo Colleges District

Prairie View A&M University

Prestamos CDFI (a division of Chicanos Por La Causa)

Pride Foundation

Primary Care Development Corporation

RCAC (Rural Community Assistance Corporation)

Reinvestment Fund

RIP Medical Debt

Salish Kootenai College

Santa Fe College

Self-Help Ventures Fund

Southern Bancorp Community Partners

Southern Partners Fund

Texas A&M International University

The San Diego Foundation — COVID-19 Community Response Fund

Tougaloo College

TruFund Financial Services

Turtle Mountain Community College

United Way chapters

· Capital Area United Way

· Heart of Florida United Way

· Metro United Way

· Mile High United Way

· United Way Bay Area

· United Way California Capital Region

· United Way de Puerto Rico

· United Way for Southeastern Michigan

· United Way of Berks County

· United Way of Broward County

· United Way of Central Indiana

· United Way of Central Maryland

· United Way of Central Massachusetts

· United Way of Central New Mexico

· United Way of El Paso County

· United Way of Genesee County

· United Way of Greater Cincinnati

· United Way of Greater Greensboro

· United Way of Greater Knoxville

· United Way of Greater Los Angeles

· United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County

· United Way of Greater Nashville

· United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey

· United Way of Greater Rochester

· United Way of Greater St. Louis

· United Way of Metro Chicago

· United Way of Miami-Dade

· United Way of Northeast Florida

· United Way of Northern New Jersey

· United Way of Palm Beach County

· United Way of Racine County

· United Way of Rhode Island

· United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County

· United Way of South Hampton Roads

· United Way of Southeast Louisiana

· United Way of Southern Cameron County

· United Way of Southern Nevada

· United Way of Southwest Louisiana

· United Way of the Columbia-Willamette

· United Way of the Greater Capital Region

· United Way of the Greater Triangle

· United Way of the Midlands

· United Way of the National Capital Area

· United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona

· United Way Suncoast

· Valley of the Sun United Way

University of Maryland Eastern Shore

Urgent Action Funds

Virginia State University

Voorhees College

Walla Walla Community College

West Kentucky Community and Technical College

Whittier College

Winston-Salem State University

YMCA of the USA (National Office)

YMCA associations

· Capital District YMCA

· Cumberland Cape Atlantic YMCA

· Duluth Area Family YMCA

· Fox Valley Family YMCA

· Greater Green Bay YMCA

· Greater Philadelphia YMCA

· High Point YMCA

· The Heart of the Valley YMCA

· The SKY Family YMCA

· The Y in Central Maryland

· Treasure Valley Family YMCA

· YMCA of Cass and Clay Counties

· YMCA of Central Florida

· YMCA of Delaware

· YMCA of Florida’s First Coast

· YMCA of Greater Boston

· YMCA of Greater Charlotte

· YMCA of Greater Cincinnati

· YMCA of Greater Cleveland

· YMCA of Greater Houston

· YMCA of Greater Indianapolis

· YMCA of Greater Montgomery

· YMCA of Greater New York

· YMCA of Greater Omaha

· YMCA of Greater Seattle

· YMCA of Greater Spartanburg

· YMCA of Greater Tulsa

· YMCA of Metro Atlanta

· YMCA of Metro Chicago

· YMCA of Metro Detroit

· YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas

· YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles

· YMCA of Metropolitan Washington

· YMCA of Middle Tennessee

· YMCA of Northern Utah

· YMCA of San Francisco

· YMCA of South Hampton Roads

· YMCA of Southern Arizona

· YMCA of the Capital Area

· YMCA of the Chesapeake

· YMCA of the Inland Northwest

· YMCA of the North

· YMCA of the Triangle Area

YWCA USA (National Office)

YWCA associations

· YWCA El Paso del Norte Region

· YWCA Evanston/North Shore

· YWCA Evansville

· YWCA Glendale

· YWCA Greater Austin

· YWCA Greater Baton Rouge

· YWCA Greater Cincinnati

· YWCA Greater Cleveland

· YWCA Greater Flint

· YWCA Greater Harrisburg

· YWCA Greater Pittsburgh

· YWCA Hamilton

· YWCA Hartford Region

· YWCA Kalamazoo

· YWCA Knoxville and the Tennessee Valley

· YWCA Lancaster

· YWCA Madison

· YWCA Mahoning Valley

· YWCA Metropolitan Chicago

· YWCA Metropolitan Phoenix

· YWCA Nashville & Middle Tennessee

· YWCA New Hampshire

· YWCA North Central Indiana

· YWCA Northern New Jersey

· YWCA Northwestern Illinois

· YWCA O’ahu

· YWCA of Binghamton and Broome County

· YWCA of Central Virginia

· YWCA of Greater Atlanta

· YWCA of Greater Los Angeles

· YWCA of Greater Portland

· YWCA of Lubbock

· YWCA of Metropolitan Detroit

· YWCA of Northwest Ohio

· YWCA of Queens

· YWCA of the City of New York

· YWCA of the Greater Capital Region

· YWCA of the Sauk Valley

· YWCA San Diego County

· YWCA San Gabriel Valley

· YWCA Seattle|King|Snohomish

· YWCA South Florida

· YWCA South Hampton Roads

· YWCA Southern Arizona

· YWCA St. Joseph

· YWCA St. Paul

· YWCA Syracuse & Onondaga County

· YWCA Tri-County Area

· YWCA Tulsa

· YWCA Ulster County

· YWCA Walla Walla

· YWCA York

116 Organizations Driving Change

MacKenzie Scott — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 17:15:01 GMT

Last year I pledged to give the majority of my wealth back to the society that helped generate it, to do it thoughtfully, to get started soon, and to keep at it until the safe is empty. There’s no question in my mind that anyone’s personal wealth is the product of a collective effort, and of social structures which present opportunities to some people, and obstacles to countless others.

Like many, I watched the first half of 2020 with a mixture of heartbreak and horror. Life will never stop finding fresh ways to expose inequities in our systems; or waking us up to the fact that a civilization this imbalanced is not only unjust, but also unstable. What fills me with hope is the thought of what will come if each of us reflects on what we can offer. Opportunities that flowed from the mere chance of skin color, sexual orientation, gender, or zip code may have yielded resources that can be powerful levers for change. People troubled by recent events can make new connections between privileges they’ve enjoyed and benefits they’ve taken for granted. From there, many will choose to share some of what they have with people whose equal participation is essential to the construction of a better world.

I began work to complete my pledge with the belief that my life had yielded two assets that could be of particular value to others: the money these systems helped deliver to me, and a conviction that people who have experience with inequities are the ones best equipped to design solutions. Last fall, I asked a team of non-profit advisors with key representation from historically marginalized race, gender, and sexual identity groups to help me find and assess organizations having major impact on a variety of causes. Though this work is ongoing and will last for years, I’m posting an update today because my own reflection after recent events revealed a dividend of privilege I’d been overlooking: the attention I can call to organizations and leaders driving change.

The non-profits listed below were selected for transformative work in one of the following areas of need:

Total given to date:

Racial Equity: $ 586,700,000

LGBTQ+ Equity: $ 46,000,000

Gender Equity: $ 133,000,000

Economic Mobility: $ 399,500,000

Empathy & Bridging Divides: $ 55,000,000

Functional Democracy: $ 72,000,000

Public Health: $ 128,300,000

Global Development: $ 130,000,000

Climate Change: $ 125,000,000

On this list, 91% of the racial equity organizations are run by leaders of color, 100% of the LGBTQ+ equity organizations are run by LGBTQ+ leaders, and 83% of the gender equity organizations are run by women, bringing lived experience to solutions for imbalanced social systems. Driven by a deep belief in the value different backgrounds bring to problem-solving on any issue, we selected for diversity in leadership across all categories of giving, supporting vital variety of perspective and experience in solutions on every cause. All of these leaders and organizations have a track record of effective management and significant impact in their fields. I gave each a contribution and encouraged them to spend it on whatever they believe best serves their efforts. Unless organization leadership requested otherwise, all commitments were paid up front and left unrestricted to provide them with maximum flexibility. I recommend these organizations to anyone similarly excited by the idea of empowering leaders well-positioned to accelerate progress. Every one of them is tackling complex challenges that will require sustained effort over many years, while simultaneously addressing consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. And every one of them would benefit from more allies looking to share wealth of all types and sizes, including money, volunteer time, supplies, advocacy, publicity, networks and relationships, collaboration, encouragement, and trust.

The Glasswing is a tiny butterfly with invisible wings that can carry 40 times its own weight. Over the last fourteen months, I’ve been inspired by the capacity of individuals to lift others: an association of women professionals mentoring girls through the same program that paid for their own educations; a network of low-income families lifting themselves out of poverty by supporting and advising each other.

The organizations named below offer a daily reminder that we can each carry more than we imagine. And they offer an opportunity to invest our good fortune in change, no matter what form our good fortune has taken.

I’ll highlight more as my giving continues in the months and years to come.

A Call to Men

ACEGID & Broad Institute — Sentinel

Advancement Project

All Our Kin

American Indian Graduate Center

Asian Americans Advancing Justice — AAJC

Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice

Black Girls CODE

Blackbird

Blue Meridian Partners

BRAC — Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiatives