Round Four: Here’s What You Need to Know About MacKenzie Scott's Latest List of Gifts

Habitat for humanity and its local affiliates landed $436 million in funding from MacKenzie Scott. MindStorm/shutterstock

Note: This article was originally published on March 24, 2022.

It’s hard to believe that the last time MacKenzie Scott announced the name of a grantee was back in June of 2021, almost nine months ago. She has continued to dominate the philanthropic airwaves nonetheless, including by choosing not to reveal her latest batch of recipients in December. Scott did give those grantees the go-ahead to announce their gifts if they wanted to, and since then, we’ve been treated to a steady stream of voluntary disclosures, some of them well into nine-figure territory. But no list from Scott herself.

Well, at long last, the drought has come to an end. In her latest Medium post, the groundbreaking billionaire donor listed out the 465 nonprofits she’s supported since last June. That includes all the recipients she would’ve listed in December, plus any that have gotten the call since then. 

She also reports a total dollar figure for those gifts: $3,863,125,000. Taking her previous giving into account, Scott has now given away around $12.3 billion over the past two years. Go ahead and let that sink in. Among mega-billionaire donors, that’s unprecedented. Her total rivals or exceeds the entire endowments of some of the country’s largest foundations. And among the 1,257 recipients, “transformational” has become the go-to word. 

As in the past, Scott prefaced her latest grantee rundown with some reflections. One theme she touched on was the idea of mutuality in nonprofit work, rejecting the notion that nonprofits must exist in a state of competition. “It’s easy to think of different groups struggling within the same systems as not only separate, but also opposing,” Scott wrote. “Yet when we help one group, we often help them all.”

While it’s easy for a funder to take that position, Scott’s choice of grantees—in this round especially—does tend to back it up by favoring groups working at the intersection of multiple issue areas—like organizations backing Indigenous land rights and conservation in the Global South, or U.S. nonprofits supporting mental health for children and youth. And while she tends to lean left, Scott covers a pretty broad range of groups working on solutions to the problems she’s interested in.

Scott also notes, “We don’t advocate for particular policies or reforms,” and that “instead, we seek a portfolio of organizations that supports the ability of all people to participate in solutions.” This seems to be Scott’s way of distancing her giving from politics. That’s hardly a novel move in philanthropy, but it’s indicative of how much this publicity-shy mega-donor differs in temperament from some of her peers who’ve very publicly embraced specific policy solutions with mixed results (i.e., the Bloombergs and Zuckerbergs of the world).

As ever with MacKenzie Scott’s announcements, there’s a lot here to unpack. We’ll be doing deeper dives into this latest round in the weeks to come. But first, here are some quick takeaways on these newest gifts from a donor whose quest to “empty the safe” remains as buzz-worthy as it ever was.

The next generation is a big theme. While Scott is no stranger to giving for K-12 education, children and youth, nonprofits serving young people were especially prominent this round. Some of Scott’s highest-dollar commitments went to well-established, youth-oriented nonprofits like Boys & Girls Clubs of America ($281 million), Communities in Schools ($133.5 million) and the National 4-H Council ($50 million). Scott’s largest commitment, by the way, went to Habitat for Humanity and its regional affiliates—$436 million in total. 

Scott also backed a wide variety of nonprofits working with U.S. schools to bolster educational equity and make instruction more effective. Racial equity in education is a big throughline. Scott also gave to organizations serving children in other ways, including groups focused on play (KABOOM! and Playworks) and groups focused on adoption and foster care (the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, iFoster and others). 

Additional grants went to organizations serving older youth, often through the lens of career opportunities and leadership development (City Year, Global Citizen Year, Youthbuild and others). 

Scott’s raising the banner for reproductive rights. One of Scott’s most eye-popping gifts this round was $275 million for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, including numerous state-based and regional affiliates. In one fell swoop, Scott has become one of philanthropy’s foremost advocates for reproductive rights, a cause that could certainly use more champions these days. (Be sure to check out our article on how funders have let down the abortion rights movement and what they can do to improve.)

In addition to the epic Planned Parenthood gift, Scott also lavished funds on a number of other reproductive rights and justice groups. They include the Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity (a funding collaborative), the Guttmacher Institute, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, and Upstream USA.

Numerous grants back the nonprofit “care economy.” Earlier this month, I penned a piece speculating that a large portion of Scott’s latest round of grants pertained to the “care economy”—a Biden-administration-inspired reference to groups working for the young, the old, the sick and the underserved. That proved to be accurate. On top of copious grants for the young (see above), Scott laid out lots of money to advance equitable health policy, provide mental health services, and look out for the rights of aging people. 

Intersectionality is the name of the game here. Plenty of these mental health grants also have a youth dimension or serve students—examples include Active Minds, the Child Mind Institute and Young People in Recovery. Meanwhile, grantees working in aging tend to have a racial equity dimension—like the Diverse Elders Coalition, the National Hispanic Council on Aging and the National Indian Council on Aging.

Multiple approaches to criminal justice reform. Something that wasn’t apparent earlier this month was just how much Scott gave for justice reform this round. I count over 20 recipients working in or around justice reform, policing, reentry and related issues. Under that umbrella, Scott appears to be backing progressive-movement-oriented groups, as well as more conventional organizations. That includes some surprising grants for nonprofits in the policing world like the National Policing Institute (formerly the National Police Foundation) and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Other grants went out to justice reform research and data shops like Measures for Justice, reentry-focused nonprofits like A New Way of Life, and groups working to prevent wrongful convictions like the Innocence Project. The Vera Institute for Justice also got a grant.

Scott is a global giver, after all. Following some initial forays into global health and development in 2020, Scott dialed back on her global grantmaking in succeeding rounds, favoring U.S.-based grantees (with some exceptions). That trend seemed on track to continue when I surveyed Scott’s grantmaking earlier this month, but that didn’t end up being the case. Global NGOs make up a substantial portion of her grantees this round. They include organizations focused on health, economic development, human rights and civil society. A large proportion of Scott’s grants for women and girls this round also had a global focus.

An interesting and unexpected trend among these grants is just how many of them went to organizations based in Brazil. I count at least 10 recipients operating in Brazil and working on a range of issues there, including anti-poverty work, women’s empowerment, and environmental conservation. Grants also went to NGOs in Africa and India, as well as a few other groups in Latin America.

Conservation with a focus on Indigenous rights. Scott’s environmental grantmaking this round can also be characterized as global, with grants to the ocean conservation group Blue Ventures and regranting outfits like the Climate Justice Resilience Fund. A major focus this round was on organizations advocating for Indigenous land rights and land tenure as a means toward environmental conservation.

Some examples from the list include the Micronesia Conservation Trust, Nia Tero, the Rights and Resources Initiative, and Tenure Facility. 

Policy and research are a growing focus. Our piece from earlier this month mentioned an uptick in Scott’s support for policy and research outfits. Her list bears that out. Scott showered a diverse array of policy shops with funding, often prioritizing groups working in fields relevant to other grants on the wider list. That’s a good strategy—as we often point out, policy funding can be a mighty lever to pull if it affects decision-making around public budgets, which can dwarf even the resources of a MacKenzie Scott.

Another thing to note: with a few exceptions, Scott didn’t back a lot of intensively ideological think tanks, instead tacking closer to the center in many cases. Examples of grantees include the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Center for Rural Strategies, Code for America, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and Benefits Data Trust. Policy and research shops focused on health (ChangeLab Solutions, the Center for Health Care Strategies) and education (Learning Policy Institute, Student Experience Research Network) were well-represented.

Racial equity’s still very much on the agenda. If it wasn’t clear already, Scott’s dedication to racial equity hasn’t waned. Having come out of the gate in the summer of 2020 with plentiful racial equity and justice funding, she has kept the drumbeat going ever since. We’ve discussed Scott’s historic level of support for historically Black colleges and universities (HCBUs), a category for which two of these recent grantees qualify—Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science and Meharry Medical College.

Far more numerous were organizations operating at the intersection of racial equity and other priorities for Scott this round. Examples include the Black Teacher Collaborative, Black Women’s Health Imperative, Latinos for Education, the National Compadres Network, the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, the National Black Child Development Institute and the Institute for Native Pacific Education and Culture, to name just a few. 

Surprise: Lots of giving for veterans. One theme we definitely didn’t anticipate was Scott’s significant focus on veterans. She has given to veterans’ groups before, including With Honor, which promotes political leadership by veterans to reduce polarization. But Scott really ramped up the giving for veterans this time. I counted about a dozen gifts, including $20 million for Operation Homefront, which provides financial assistance and other services to military families.

Scott seems to be interested in job opportunities, education and economic empowerment for veterans returning to civilian life. A few example grantees include Hire Heroes USA, NPower (which also serves youth from low-income communities), the Mission Continues, Student Veterans of America, and the Warrior-Scholar Project. 

No surprise: Relief for Ukraine. Seven gifts this round went to “Ukraine relief efforts,” and Scott moved an additional grant to the International Refugee Assistance Project. The other Ukraine aid recipients are CARE, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy’s Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis Recovery Fund, Choose Love, HIAS, the Norwegian Refugee Council, OutRight Action International, and the Urgent Action Fund’s Urgent Response Fund for Ukraine. 

Keep checking the feed here at Inside Philanthropy as we unpack MacKenzie Scott’s giving in greater depth. We’ll be keeping an eye out for the website she’s hinted at debuting later this year—which she says will include a database of her gifts. Meanwhile, the jury’s still out on whether Scott’s giving project has prompted the wider universe of very big donors to change their ways in any meaningful capacity.