{"id":163719,"date":"2025-09-23T11:59:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/163719\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T11:59:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:59:10","slug":"mackenzie-scott-gives-70-million-to-uncf-to-financially-strengthen-hbcus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/163719\/","title":{"rendered":"MacKenzie Scott gives $70 million to UNCF to financially strengthen HBCUs"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott<\/a> has donated $70 million to the UNCF, as the nation\u2019s largest private provider of scholarships to minority students works to raise $1 billion to strengthen all 37 of its historically Black colleges and universities.<\/p>\n

The gift is one of Scott\u2019s largest single donations ever and among the first to be publicly disclosed in 2025. Famously private, Scott only discusses her donations through her website<\/a> and does not confirm them until after the recipients do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis extraordinary gift is a powerful vote of confidence in HBCUs and in the work of UNCF,\u201d the nonprofit\u2019s President and CEO Dr. Michael L. Lomax told The Associated Press in a statement. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lomax said Scott\u2019s donation would be used for UNCF\u2019s pooled endowment, which aims to establish a $370 million fund \u2014 $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. Increasing HBCU endowments is a priority since they trail endowments at non-HBCUs by 70%, according to the UNCF.<\/p>\n

The broader $1 billion fundraising effort is an attempt to help HBCUs address the funding disparity<\/a> they face when compared to other colleges and universities. A 2023 study by philanthropic research group Candid and ABFE, a nonprofit that advocates for investments in Black communities, found that the eight Ivy League schools received $5.5 billion<\/a> from the 1,000 largest U.S. foundations compared to $45 million for the 99 HBCUs in 2019.<\/p>\n

Since Scott, a novelist who received the bulk of her fortune after divorcing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, signed the Giving Pledge in 2019, promising to donate more than half her wealth, HBCUs have been among her favorite grantees<\/a>. She previously gave UNCF $10 million in 2020.<\/p>\n

Though Scott hasn\u2019t addressed HBCU donations specifically, she wrote in 2020<\/a> that her funding decisions were \u201cdriven by a deep belief in the value different backgrounds bring to problem-solving on any issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott hasn\u2019t made any announcements about her giving since she acknowledged $2 billion in gifts<\/a> in 2024, bringing her total to $19.2 billion. According to Forbes, Scott\u2019s net worth<\/a> is currently around $34 billion.<\/p>\n

Her unusual donations \u2014 which are much larger than most foundations give at one time and carry no restrictions on when they can be used or what they can be used for \u2014 financially strengthened the nonprofits that received them, said Phil Buchanan, president of The Center for Effective Philanthropy, which studied Scott\u2019s giving<\/a> over three years. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t see the fears people predicted come to pass,\u201d said Buchanan, who disclosed that The Center for Effective Philanthropy received a one-time $10 million grant from Scott. Though some worried that the large gifts would cause the recipients to increase staffing too much or hurt their fundraising efforts, Buchanan said their study of 2,000 nonprofits saw little evidence of that. \u201cFolks are pretty prudent,\u201d he said. \u201cThis shows that if you carefully vet nonprofits, we can trust them to make good use of funds.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a lesson that UNCF hopes other funders will learn, following Scott\u2019s example.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are deeply grateful for MacKenzie Scott\u2019s continued support,\u201d Lomax said. \u201cBy entrusting UNCF to decide how best to use these funds, she affirms that HBCUs merit investment at this scale and her generosity will strengthen our member institutions and provide pathways to success for tomorrow\u2019s changemakers.\u201d<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP\u2019s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP\u2019s philanthropy coverage, visit https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/philanthropy<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has donated $70 million to the UNCF, as the nation\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[5314,84817,45,49,48,361,12166,549,75,2561,90,84818,45847],"class_list":{"0":"post-163719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-amazon-com","9":"tag-black-experience","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-celebrities","14":"tag-colleges-and-universities","15":"tag-education","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-inc","18":"tag-jeff-bezos","19":"tag-michael-l-lomax","20":"tag-philanthropy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}