Good morning! Large banks remove or adjust mentions of DEI, states with abortions bans saw increases in infant mortality and births, and a new report analyzes how effectively nonprofits have used MacKenzie Scott's donations.
- Big gifting. Over the past five years, MacKenzie Scott has given over $19 billion in unrestricted gifts to more than 2,000 organizations in her quest to spend down the billions she received as part of her divorce settlement from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. As I wrote in January, her philanthropy is unique in that the gifts she makes are large, unrestricted, and don’t have a specified timeframe in which they need to be spent. Her strategies have become a topic of fascination in the philanthropic world.
Of course, where large amounts of money are involved, there is bound to be plenty of exaggerated cheerleading—and plenty of skepticism and criticism. Some have feared that organizations, particularly smaller ones, wouldn’t be able to effectively manage the money. Others thought it would lead to a decrease in donations from other patrons. And then there’s the ongoing concern about a “funding cliff,” in which orgs spend down the money and are left with a large gap in revenue. And that’s before we wade into the murky morality of billionaire philanthropy to begin with.
Now, we have more insight into the effects of Scott’s philanthropy. A new three-year study, out today from the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), finds that gifting has been "transformational" for the nonprofits and other organizations that have received the funding, and that the feared negative consequences have not come to pass, at least not yet.
"It could take decades to truly understand the effects these gifts have had on nonprofits and the sector at large," the report reads. "However, after five years of giving, the reported effects of her gifts on recipient organizations...remain overwhelmingly positive."
The report analyzes data from more than 1,000 organizations that received a gift from Scott between 2020 and early 2024, looking at the gifts’ effects on the nonprofits and foundations over a three-year period. It is the most comprehensive public accounting of Scott’s grants so far.
Some standout stats from the report: Social justice, human services, and education are the most common key focus areas for the organizations Scott gives to. Her median grant is $5 million, compared to a median of $123,000 at large organizations CEP typically studies. Most of the recipient organizations are slowly spending down the funds: Even those who received a donation from Scott in 2020 have spent just 60% of it, at the median.
CEP finds organizations have overwhelmingly managed the money well: They are investing in endowments, increasing operating budgets responsibly, and hiring fundraising consultants to ensure they’re using the funds strategically.
"A lot of the pushback that we heard from folks was that nonprofits can't absorb that many funds, or they're gonna have problems with their fundraising in the future," says Elisha Smith Arrillaga, CEP’s vice president of research and co-author of the study. "And what we've seen consistently across all three years is that it's just not the case."
Smith Arrillaga says the results should be inspiring for anyone who is philanthropically minded—even if they don’t have Scott’s billions to give away. It’s not about the size of the gift, she says, but about the size of the gift relative to the organization. If there is a nonprofit in your community doing well on a shoestring budget—as most have—then even a few hundred or a thousand dollars can have a profound impact.
"Actually every single person has the ability to do what MacKenzie Scott has done," she says. "We can all do this kind of giving."
There’s a lot more to dig into in CEP’s report. You can read it here, and read profiles of some of the recipient organizations here.
Alicia Adamczyk
alicia.adamczyk@fortune.com
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here.
