MacKenzie Scott has promised to dole out much of her fortune to charity. Taylor Hill/FilmMagic
MacKenzie Scott’s newest donation will funnel $70 million towards UNCF, a U.S. nonprofit focused on bolstering the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The funding, which will help boost the endowments of more than three dozen HBCUs, brings Scott’s total gifts to UNCF to $80 million.
“This extraordinary gift is a powerful vote of confidence in HBCUs and in the work of UNCF,” said Michael Lomax, president and CEO of UNCF, 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.”
As part of UNCF’s campaign to raise $1 billion, Scott’s gift will benefit the organization’s pooled endowment initiative for its 37 member HBCUs. As a result of the effort, each school is expected to receive a $10 million stake in the pooled funds, which will be distributed at a 4 percent annual payout rate to ensure long-term stability for each institution. This would eventually raise the median endowment of UNCF member schools to $25.9 million—a 63 percent increase compared to the current median of $15.9 million.
Besides attempting to raise a total of $370 million for its pooled endowment, UNCF is still looking to secure $100 million in scholarship endowments, $80 million for UNCF’s operating endowment and $100 million for technological advancements across its members. Founded in 1944, the nonprofit has raised more than $6 billion over the past eight decades to support its goals of strengthening HBCUs, higher education access and scholarship opportunities.
Scott’s new donation is large even by her own standards. Her two most significant gifts last year, for example, both totaled at $65 million. Scott, who was formerly married to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and currently has an estimated net worth of $32.9 billion, in 2019 pledged to give the majority of her fortune to charity.
She’s made good progress on her promise, having doled out nearly $20 billion to more than 2,000 organizations over the past five years. The publicity-shy philanthropist has quickly become one of the field’s most impactful players through the size and unrestricted nature of her gifts, which are often given to grantees selected via quiet research and, according to a recent report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy, have been shown to strengthen the long-term financial sustainability of recipients.
Scott previously supported UNCF back in 2020 with a $10 million gift toward its emergency reserve fund. Her other major gifts to HBCUs have included $45 million to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, $40 million to both Morgan State University and Norfolk State University, and $30 million to Virginia State University.
Financial support for HBCUs is especially pressing in light of the funding gap between HBCUs and non-HBCUs, according to UNCF, which noted that the endowments of the former trail the latter by at least 70 percent. In recent months, however, HBCUs have received a flurry of funding. The Department of Education in September redirected $435 million worth of funding to HBCUs in a move that increases federal funding for the schools to $1.3 billion for fiscal year 2025, a 48 percent increase compared to last year. Despite describing the additional funds as a “godsend” in a statement, Lodriguez Murray, UNCF’s senior vice president for public policy and government affairs, warned that HBCUs still “are currently and have been underfunded since their inception.”
The largest-ever single donation to an HBCU took place earlier this month when the Moody Foundation gave the Austin-based Huston-Tillotson University a staggering $150 million. Granted over the next 10 years, the funds will be designated for scholarships and campus upgrades.
