Global nonprofits among grantees in MacKenzie Scott's $2.7B donation

Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott on Tuesday unveiled her latest multibillion-dollar round of grants, with a list of grantees that includes a number of international arts, culture, health, interfaith, and refugee resettlement organizations. In a Medium blog post, Scott said that she and her husband, Dan Jewett, have donated more than $2.7 billion to 286 “high-impact organizations in categories and communities that have been historically underfunded and overlooked.” Included on the list are global health organizations Partners In Health and mothers2mothers, along with Ashoka, the global network of social entrepreneurs, and Namati, a legal empowerment and training network. Several groups — such as Ushahidi, Digital Green, Kiva, and TechSoup Global Network — are focused on leveraging tech to improve people’s lives. Other grantees work on the empowerment of women and girls worldwide. Among the Africa-based or Africa-focused organizations are Adeso, Afrika Tikkun, Amref Health Africa, Muso, The BOMA Project, GiveDirectly, Tostan, Lwala Community Alliance, African Leadership Group, and Ubuntu Pathways. Grants also were provided to GiveIndia; ACT Grants; The/Nudge Foundation; Piramal Swasthya; Goonj; the Society for Nutrition, Education & Health Action; Mann Deshi Foundation; the Antara Foundation; and Jan Sahas — all of which are based in India. Another grantee, Jusoor, provides educational and career development programs for Syrian children and youths. “What it [the donation] does is it really lifts the ceiling on our ambitions.” --— Ruth Levine, CEO, IDinsight No dollar amounts were published per grantee. However, IDinsight — a global advisory, data analytics, and research organization — said it received $12 million. IDinsight CEO Ruth Levine said she had no prior knowledge of the grant. According to Levine, she received a short email asking for a phone call and arranged to speak with the person, whom she did not name, a few hours later. “It was a maybe 15- or 20-minute phone call that was very scripted. The person said, ‘I will need to read some things.’ And it was basically the terms of confidentiality before an announcement was made. And then I was informed that IDinsight has been selected for a grant of $12 million,” Levine said. She said landing the grant felt like being tapped by a fairy godmother’s magic wand. The 10-year-old nonprofit, which employs more than 180 people, had survived by being “pretty scrappy, very lean,” Levine said, but now has the opportunity to invest in what she called “core organizational capabilities” needed to execute the group’s projects, such as strategic communications and data science engineering. “What it does is it really lifts the ceiling on our ambitions,” she said, adding that the gift would make it possible to move forward with ideas that other funders might not be willing to take a risk on. This is the third round of grants that Scott has announced since 2020. Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, said she and Jewett want to “give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change.” “In this effort, we 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,” she wrote. Scott has largely eschewed the traditional pathways to philanthropic giving by not establishing a foundation or even a public-facing email address. Still, she made it clear that she and Jewett had consulted with “a constellation of researchers and administrators and advisors.” And she said they spent the first quarter of 2021 evaluating equity-oriented nonprofits working in “neglected” areas. Scott, who has chosen not to speak about her charitable giving outside of blog posts, also criticized the practice of centering large donors in stories on social progress, calling it a “distortion of their role.” Scott’s wealth has soared in recent years along with the stock price of Amazon, which has come under fire recently for mismanaging workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Forbes estimates her net worth to be $59.6 billion.