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Billionaire author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott is continuing her tradition of donations to educational programs, offering a $42 million grant to 10,000 Degrees, a San Rafael, California-based nonprofit that provides college scholarships to low-income students.
The donation, which came through Scott’s Yield Giving organization, will help 10,000 Degrees in its mission of disrupting cycles of poverty.
“A gift like this, when we think about what’s going on around us, this has put such wind into our sails and such hope that MacKenzie Scott is spreading throughout the world,” says Kim Mazzuca, CEO of 10,000 Degrees.
The organization was founded in 1981 and, over the course of its history, has given $113 million in scholarships to more than 80,000 students. Over the past year, 10,000 Degrees has handed out $9 million in scholarships and helped students secure $73 million worth of financial aid.
The nonprofit does not require participating students to meet GPA or test score qualification levels. It, instead, pairs scholarship funds with college and career mentors. It boasts an 80 percent graduation rate for four-year college students.
Mazzuca says the grant will be used in a number of ways. 10,000 Degrees is just completing a five-year strategic plan. The upcoming one is more ambitious about reaching students and plans to expand beyond the San Francisco Bay Area and Utah, where the company operates now. There are also plans to explore taking parts of its model national, working alongside other nonprofits. Some of the money will also go toward 10,000 Degrees’ endowment fund, where it can grow.
Mazzuca got the call informing her about the grant on September 10, she says, but she had to keep it a secret from the board and the rest of the company until the money was transferred to the corporate account. (Staff learned of the grant Wednesday at noon PT.)
The company’s chief financial officer, however, was on vacation when the funds were transferred on September 22 and couldn’t be reached. Mazzuca says she got an urgent call later that day from the CFO saying “something happened to our account.”
MacKenzie Scott’s history of giving
The gifts from Scott follow a number of donations she made to educational groups last month. In September, she gave $70 million to the United Negro College Fund, which offers scholarships to Black students and provides scholarship money to 37 private historically Black colleges and universities. That same month, she donated $50 million to the Native Forward Scholars Fund, which offers educational support to Native American undergraduate and graduate students.
Scott had previously made smaller donations to both organizations in 2020.
In 2022, she gifted the Southern Education Foundation, a 155-year-old nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing education equity and opportunity in the South, $6 million. That same year she also donated $5 million to Breakthrough Collaborative, which offers Teaching Fellowships to recruit college students to become teachers.
Scott announced plans five years ago to donate the majority of her $33 billion fortune. That amount is tied to Amazon stock, and has since increased substantially as the company’s stock has increased about 35 percent over that time.
Scott, who divorced Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2019 after 25 years of marriage and was part of the founding team of the company, has given roughly $19.3 billion to more than 2,450 nonprofits so far. Some of those donations have been widely announced. Others have not.
Scott has opted to focus her philanthropic efforts on organizations that are working to address societal and community issues, including early learning, affordable housing, and gender and race equity. Included among the organizations she has made large gifts to are the Girl Scouts of the USA (which received $85 million in 2022 to help it recover from the pandemic); Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America, which received $25 million that same year; and Local Initiatives Support Corp., which she gave $65 million last year to aid with community development and housing stability.
Despite her philanthropic giving, Scott remains the world’s 49th richest person, according to Bloomberg, with a net worth of $42.1 billion.
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Chris Morris
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