Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has donated $70 million to the UNCF, as the nation's largest private provider of scholarships to minority students works to raise $1 billion to strengthen all 37 of its historically Black colleges and universities. The gift is one of Scott's largest single donations ever, reports the AP. Famously private, Scott only discusses her donations through her website and does not confirm them until after recipients do. "This extraordinary gift is a powerful vote of confidence in HBCUs and in the work of UNCF," the nonprofit's CEO Dr. Michael Lomax said in a statement. "It provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity for our member institutions to build permanent assets that will support students and campuses for decades to come."
Lomax said Scott's donation would be used for UNCF's pooled endowment, which aims to establish a $370 million fund—$10 million for each UNCF member HBCU. That fund will be invested and designed to pay out about 4% annually, which will then be divided among the HBCUs to help stabilize their budgets. HBCU endowments trail endowments at non-HBCUs by 70%. The broader $1 billion fundraising effort is an attempt to help HBCUs address the funding disparity they face when compared to other colleges and universities. A 2023 study by philanthropic research group Candid and ABFE found that the eight Ivy League schools received $5.5 billion from the 1,000 largest US foundations compared to $45 million for the 99 HBCUs in 2019.
Since Scott signed the Giving Pledge in 2019, promising to donate more than half her wealth, HBCUs have been among her favorite grantees. She previously gave UNCF $10 million in 2020. Scott wrote in 2020 that her funding decisions were "driven by a deep belief in the value different backgrounds bring to problem-solving on any issue." Scott hasn't made any announcements about her giving since she acknowledged $2 billion in gifts in 2024, bringing her total to $19.2 billion. According to Forbes, Scott's net worth is currently around $34 billion.
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Her unusual donations—which are much larger than most foundations give at one time and carry no restrictions—financially strengthened the nonprofits that received them, said Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, which studied Scott's giving over three years. "We didn't see the fears people predicted come to pass," said Buchanan, who disclosed that the Center for Effective Philanthropy received a $10 million grant from Scott. Though some worried that the large gifts would cause the recipients to increase staffing too much or hurt fundraising efforts, Buchanan said their study of 2,000 nonprofits saw little evidence of that. "Folks are pretty prudent," he said. "This shows that if you carefully vet nonprofits, we can trust them to make good use of funds."
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