MacKenzie Scott is sending a strong signal that she doesn’t plan to abandon her pledge to support nonprofits that address diversity and equity, even as the Trump administration continues to scrutinize funders backing those causes.
This week, 10,000 Degrees, a California-based education nonprofit, announced it had received a $42 million gift from Scott. The organization provides college scholarships to students in the San Francisco Bay Area and Utah, as well as other assistance, such as financial-aid advising, childcare assistance, and career guidance to low-income students. Nearly all of the students the group works with identify as Black, Latino, Indigenous, or from another non-white group, and most are the first in their family to attend college.
Kim Mazzuca, CEO of 10,000 Degrees, said she nearly cried when one of Scott’s advisers called to tell her about the gift, the largest in the organization’s 45-year history. The donation comes at a critical moment for the group, which has been working on a strategic plan to chart how it will help students and their communities over the next five to 10 years, Mazzuca said. She said the gift feels especially uplifting in a moment when many of the young people the group works with are frightened by growing political polarization and escalating anti-immigrant rhetoric.
“I would say these last seven months have been even more difficult than Covid for the organization,” Mazzuca said, adding that some students and their families have been afraid to go to school or work due to fear of immigration raids or racial violence.
“This is more than a gift of financial needs. It is truly a gift of hope to do more and to keep at it,” she said. “And I think that that’s what her gift says to many of us who are out there on the ground. That’s why it’s just amazing what she’s doing.”
The group is the third minority-scholarship provider to announce a multimillion gift from Scott in the past month. UNCF, the nation’s largest private provider of scholarships for students of color, received a $70 million donation from Scott to support its $1 billion fundraising campaign for historically Black colleges and universities, the group announced on September 22. She also gave UNCF $10 million in 2020.
Then on September 24, Native Forward Scholars Fund, the nation’s largest direct provider of scholarships for Native American students, announced it had received a$50 million gift from Scott. Again, it was Scott’s second donation to the group, following a $20 million gift in 2020.
Scott is among the most elusive of billionaire philanthropists; she doesn’t have a foundation and in recent years only releases statements about her grant making once a year on her website. Her last statement was posted in December 2024.
Even without a formal statement, Scott’s recent gifts seem to signal an ongoing commitment to promoting equity in education, even as the Trump administration issues orders to end diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and threatens to investigate funders that support progressive causes, philanthropy experts said.
Philanthropy scholar Megan Ming Francis said she’s not surprised that Scott is staying the course on equity. Scott has never seemed to follow giving trends and instead supports causes she seems to deeply believe in, said Francis, a University of Washington professor who studies the funding of social movements and nonprofits led by people of color.
“My sense from the breadcrumbs that she has given us of her theory of giving, is that she does not expect certain types of results, like, once she gives $10 million this and this will happen,” Francis said. “She gives to organizations that she believes want to make the world good.”
What’s more, Francis said, because Scott doesn’t have a foundation, she doesn’t have to worry that her giving to equity causes will impact the future of an institution or staff.
A History of Equity Giving
Prioritizing groups that work to reduce racial and class inequities has long been a hallmark of Scott’s giving. She signed the Giving Pledge and vowed to give away the bulk of her fortune in 2019. That same year, Scott divorced Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whom she helped to start the online retail giant; she received billions of dollars worth of company stock as part of their divorce settlement. Scott has given away more than $19 billion in unrestricted gifts to more than 2,450 nonprofits since then.
When Scott announced her first round of giving in July 2020, she expressed a desire to “expose inequities in our systems.” Since then, she has consistently funded groups that promote racial, gender, and health equity as well as democracy-building. Several historically Black colleges and universities — such as Hampton and Howard universities — were included in her first round of grants in 2020.
In her most recent post from December 2024, Scott noted that most of the gifts went to groups that “support the economic security and opportunity of people who are struggling by improving access to affordable housing, jobs that provide stability for themselves and their families, child development and post-secondary education, healthcare, and financial counseling, business coaching, and low-interest rate loans focused on increasing economic potential and building wealth.”
Leaders at nonprofits that received Scott gifts have said the donations boosted their confidence in themselves and improved morale among their staff, according to Elisha Smith Arrillaga, vice president for research at the Center for Effective Philanthropy. Smith Arrillaga led a three-year study of Scott’s giving. CEP, which produces data on nonprofits and foundations, also received a $10 million donation from her in 2021, which it said was not used for the research.
Scott’s large donations have provided a financial cushion to many groups that have lost federal funds since the start of the year, Smith Arrillaga said.
“What we know, anecdotally, not from the report, is there have been organizations that have talked about the initial gift she gave being especially important in this moment when other funds are being cut by the government,” she said.
10,000 Degrees doesn’t receive federal funding, so recent cuts have had minimal impact on its work, Mazzuca said.
Still, like other nonprofits, 10,000 Degrees worries about long-term sustainability, she said. Part of Scott’s gift will be used to create a $10 million endowment that will be separate from its $2.7 million endowed scholarship fund, she said. Over the past four decades, 10,000 Degrees has awarded more than $105 million in scholarships, according to its website. With the additional $10 million endowment, 10,000 Degrees will be able to focus on building up its own capacity and launching new initiatives to expand its impact in the communities it works with, Mazzuca said.
