Billionaire philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott announced Tuesday she is giving $640 million to 361 small nonprofits that responded to an open call for applications.
Yield Giving’s first round of donations is more than double what Scott had initially pledged to give away through the application process. Since she began giving away billions in 2019, Scott and her team have researched and selected organizations without an application process and provided them with large, unrestricted gifts.
In a brief note on her website, Scott wrote she was grateful to Lever for Change, the organization that managed the open call, and the evaluators for “their roles in creating this pathway to support for people working to improve access to foundational resources in their communities. They are vital agents of change.”
“But billionnaire bad cause has the money!” is how people typically respond. I don’t even think being able to get billions is bad. The number itself is whatever. Actions are what’s important. A handful of the whatever-naires aren’t steaming piles of ass, so we should support them.
Translates to
Everyone wants fix now! Fixes take time and resources. Often a number of small changes that work towards a larger, positive outcome. The issue I often see, if it is an issue and not my own blindness, is how so many people see the bricks and not the wall. A tremendous number of people can identify single, needed changes. Many more cannot link those changes to the necessary effort and other necessary changes that need to be made to get there. I’m certainly not smart enough to connect all the threads either. I do know, however, that alienating potential allies is a mistake. We have to work within the means that exist today, not within a dream of what we wish for tomorrow. Move towards that dream, just don’t exist within it hoping for better without accepting the resources we can use now.