Author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, one of the world’s wealthiest women, has been on a mission of giving since her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Scott announced Tuesday that several historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are among the groups she has selected for her latest round of charitable gifts.
HBCUs have always fallen far behind white schools in endowments — simply because well-endowed white schools have generations of well-heeled wealthy former students who were able to make large donations to their alma maters.
Bloomburg reported on the endowment gap back in 2017.
(N)one of the ninety institutions of higher education in the U.S. with endowments of more than $1 billion is an HBCU, and even the wealthiest of the HBCUs, Howard University in Washington, D.C., only ranks a hundred and sixtieth on the list, with an endowment of $578 million — just 2 percent of that of top-ranking Harvard University, which has an endowment of $35.7 billion. The impact of such a discrepancy is profound: the bigger a school's endowment, the more it can spend on attracting highly qualified students, regardless of need, and on providing those students with the academic services they need to succeed.
To help people understand her choices (and inspire generosity in others), Scott posted “384 Ways to Help” on Medium yesterday.
After my post in July, I asked a team of advisors to help me accelerate my 2020 giving through immediate support to people suffering the economic effects of the crisis. They took a data-driven approach to identifying organizations with strong leadership teams and results, with special attention to those operating in communities facing high projected food insecurity, high measures of racial inequity, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital.
The result over the last four months has been $4,158,500,000 in gifts to 384 organizations across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington D.C. Some are filling basic needs: food banks, emergency relief funds, and support services for those most vulnerable. Others are addressing long-term systemic inequities that have been deepened by the crisis: debt relief, employment training, credit and financial services for under-resourced communities, education for historically marginalized and underserved people, civil rights advocacy groups, and legal defense funds that take on institutional discrimination.
HBCUs have certainly had the “low access to philanthropic capital” Scott mentions. Joyous responses to her “no-strings” gifts were immediately posted to social media.
This isn’t the first time Scott donated money to HBCUs.
The donation was truly historic.
This is a big deal.
Even Scott’s smaller gifts made history.
HBCU GameDay notes that Scott is the world’s 18th richest person.
As the proud daughter of two HBCU graduates, and a former Howard University student, I’m grateful that Ms. Scott has seen fit to appreciate the importance of HBCUs in our community.
As a nation, we reap the benefits when HBCU graduates walk among us. Here’s an example.
Thank you, MacKenzie Scott!