As part of her commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has offered a $42 million grant to California-based education nonprofit 10,000 Degrees.
The nonprofit provides college scholarships to low-income and largely non-white students. Scott’s donation to 10,000 Degrees marks the largest single gift in the organization’s 45-year history, and it came through her Yield Giving organization, which will further its mission to “achieve educational equity and to support students from low-income backgrounds to and through college to realize their full potential and positively impact their communities and the world,” as written by the nonproift on its website.
“This remarkable investment will deepen our impact and help even more students acheive their college and career dreams,” Jin Choi, the scholarship director for 10,000 Degrees, wrote. “I’m truly grateful and proud to be part of an organization so deeply committed to supporting students to, through, and beyond college.”
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Founded in 1981, 10,000 Degrees has offered more than $105 million in scholarships to over 60,000 students.
Scott, one of the wealthiest women in the world, has donated billions of her fortune to various entities across the country, including some HBCUs. In 2019, she signed the Giving Pledge, a charitable campaign by Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett that urged wealthy people to contribute more than half their wealth to philanthropic causes.
Even though she has given away half her wealth, her net worth has remained largely the same.
In 2019 when she divorced Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, her net worth was $35.6 billion. She has donated $19 billion since then and is now valued at $32.5 billion by Forbes.
Her donations have usually centered on education. In September this year, she donated $70 million to the United Negro College Fund, which provides scholarships to Black students and scholarship money to 37 historically Black colleges and universities, as reported by KTVU.
That same month, she also gave $50 million to the Native Forward Scholars Fund, which supports Native American undergraduate and graduate students.
