MacKenzie Scott’s latest round of gifts sends a clear message: Her commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion remains intact—and she’s doubling down on it through major, unrestricted support for scholarship providers serving students of color and underrepresented communities. Recent donations include a $42 million gift to 10,000 Degrees, the Bay Area nonprofit expanding college access for low-income and largely non-white students, alongside eight-figure commitments to Native student scholars and HBCU endowments through UNCF.
Standing by DEI
- Scott’s $42 million donation to 10,000 Degrees marks the largest single gift in the organization’s 45-year history, reinforcing her strategy of funding opportunity pipelines for first-generation and low-income students, many of whom are students of color.
- Her recent giving also includes tens of millions for Native Forward, the nation’s largest scholarship provider for Native students, signaling continued backing of racial-equity-centered education funds amid broader sector retrenchment on DEI.
- The pattern aligns with Scott’s hallmark of large, trust-based grants to equity-focused organizations, providing flexible capital to scale access and persistence for underrepresented learners.
The UNCF anchor gift
- In September, Scott donated $70 million to UNCF as part of a campaign to bolster pooled endowments across 37 HBCUs, a move designed to create durable revenue streams and narrow historic wealth and funding gaps versus predominantly white institutions.
- The gift—one of Scott’s largest—builds on her earlier support for Black higher education and reflects a multi-year focus on education equity as a cornerstone of her philanthropy.
How Scott gives
- Scott’s model emphasizes speed, scale, and minimal restrictions: large grants delivered quickly and without strings, allowing grantees to deploy funds where needs are greatest and opportunities are most immediate.
- In 2024,…