MacKenzie Scott’s most recent round of gifts to charities in December totaled more than $1 billion after the latest organization announced unrestricted donations by the author, one of the world’s wealthiest women.
Organizations continue to announce their gifts from the December round of grants directly from Scott. Habitat for Humanity today announced that its national office and 84 affiliates received a total of $436 million. The national office received $25 million and the Los Angeles affiliate received $20 million. Boys & Girls Clubs of America recently announced $281 million in gifts, with $20 million to the national office in Atlanta and the remainder to affiliates around the country.
The NonProfit Times estimates that December’s gifts total at least $1.144 billion to some 200 organizations, according to a tally of organizations that have announced details.
The most recent tally puts Scott’s giving from the December round of grants in the neighborhood of her previous announcements and approaches $10 billion overall:
- $4.15 billion, 384 organizations, December 2020
- $2.74 billion, 286 organizations, June 2021
- $1.675 billion, 116 organizations, July 2020
UPDATED: In her latest post this morning, Scott identified 465 organizations that shared in a total of $3,863,125,000 in giving since her last round of gifts in June. Total giving by Scott now stands at more than $12.4 billion to 1,251 nonprofits in the past two years.
Most, if not all, of the gifts have been the largest individual, unrestricted donations that the organizations have ever received.
Scott announced another round of grants to nonprofits in typical fashion, in a post on Medium. The December announcement, however, differed from previous rounds in that it did not identify organizations or grant amounts. That led to some questions and a follow-up post, “No Poetry This Time,” in which she made clear that she would be providing more information in the future and likely to continue twice-yearly announcements.
Since December, organizations have been periodically announcing that they’ve received gifts from Scott.
“It’s important to us not only to say that we received the gift but to make sure we expressed that the gift is catalytic, and it is challenging us to do more,” Kaboom! CEO Lysa Ratliff said. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit received $14 million after initial contact from Scott’s team in May.
Many leaders of organizations that have received Scott’s largesse have talked about measuring outcomes of their work, which appears to be a key part of the vetting process for Scott and her advisors.
After building its 3,000th playground in 2017, Ratliff said Kaboom! start to examine how to shift to being an impact-driven organization and a better understanding where inequity exists, resulting in its 25 in 5 Initiative to End Playspace Inequity. The initiative aims to accelerate progress to end playspace inequity in 25 places over the next five years nationwide, to address key child and community outcomes, closing the gap in access to great places to play in communities, systems, and networks in which playspace inequity exists.”