{"id":3303,"date":"2026-04-07T15:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=3303"},"modified":"2026-04-07T15:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:46:16","slug":"mackenzie-scotts-latest-donation-takes-her-hbcu-giving-to-well-over-1-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=3303","title":{"rendered":"MacKenzie Scott&#8217;s latest donation takes her HBCU giving to well over $1 billion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img src=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2100039841-2-e1775572915732.jpg?w=2048\" \/><\/p>\n<p>MacKenzie Scott has continued her giving spree to historically Black colleges and universities, and this time she\u2019s crossed a milestone.<\/p>\n<p>One of the billionaire philanthropist\u2019s latest gifts, a $42 million donation to Elizabeth City State University on the school\u2019s Founders Day in North Carolina, pushes her total giving to HBCUs well past the $1 billion mark. And that\u2019s just part of Scott\u2019s $26 billion philanthropic commitment since 2020, in which she\u2019s donated to thousands of organizations focused on DEI, disaster recovery, community development, health, and environmental causes. Tuesday also happens to be Scott\u2019s 55th birthday.<\/p>\n<p>Elizabeth City State University Chancellor S. Keith Hargrove, Sr., expressed his \u201cdeepest gratitude\u201d for Scott\u2019s gift, saying she recognizes\u201d the critical role that HBCUs play in expanding opportunity and strengthening communities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer investment affirms what we already know: that institutions like ECSU are powerful catalysts for change,\u201d Hargrove said in a statement. \u201cGifts like this do more than provide resources; they accelerate momentum.\u201d Scott\u2019s donation will help the school\u2019s ASCEND 2030 strategic plan, expanding opportunities for students and strengthening ties to the surrounding community.<\/p>\n<p>The gift is the latest in a pattern Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has been building since 2020, when she first began directing hundreds of millions of dollars toward HBCUs. One such gift was to Howard University, the alma mater of former Vice President Kamala Harris, Thurgood Marshall, and Toni Morrison (with whom Scott shares a deep connection). Scott, who is worth an estimated $38.3 billion, donated $80 million to Howard in November 2025, which was one of the school\u2019s largest donations in its 158-year history.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Every HBCU MacKenzie Scott has funded\u2014and how much<\/p>\n<p>Why no-strings-attached giving is so rare and powerful<\/p>\n<p>These donations share a commonality: They\u2019re unrestricted, meaning schools can allocate them however they see fit, which could include funded scholarships, fortified endowments, attracted faculty, and bankrolled long-deferred facility upgrades. That flexibility, rare in philanthropy, is the cornerstone of what has made her approach so distinctive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe practices trust-based philanthropy,\u201d Anne Marie Dougherty, CEO of the Bob Woodruff Foundation, previously told Fortune. (Scott made two major donations to a veterans-focused organization: $15 million in 2022 and $20 million in 2025). Noni Ramos, CEO of Housing Trust Silicon Valley, has similarly noted Scott\u2019s donations are \u201cunlike traditional funding processes,\u201d which typically involve lengthy applications, specific restrictions, and reporting requirements.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer style empowers organizations like ours to determine how best to direct funds quickly and innovatively to address pressing issues,\u201d Ramos told Fortune in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Scott\u2019s HBCU giving exists within a broader DEI-focused philanthropic strategy that has become increasingly pronounced as the Trump administration rolls back federal support for diversity-focused programs and institutions. In 2025 alone, she donated $70 million each to the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and the United Negro College Fund.<\/p>\n<p>The personal experiences behind Scott\u2019s $26 billion giving streak<\/p>\n<p>Scott\u2019s motivation for giving at this scale traces back, in part, to formative experiences during her college years. A dentist once offered her free dental work when he saw her securing a broken tooth with denture glue, and a college roommate loaned her $1,000 when she saw her crying about nearly having to drop out during her sophomore year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is these ripple effects that make imagining the power of any of our own acts of kindness impossible,\u201d Scott wrote in a December 2025 essay. \u201cThe potential of peaceful, non-transactional contribution has long been underestimated, often on the basis that it is not financially self-sustaining, or that some of its benefits are hard to track. But what if these imagined liabilities are actually assets?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The simple pleasure of giving also plays a role.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGenerosity and kindness engage the same pleasure centers in the brain as sex, food, and receiving gifts, and they improve our health and long-term happiness as well,\u201d Scott said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>#MacKenzie #Scotts #latest #donation #takes #HBCU #giving #billion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MacKenzie Scott has continued her giving spree to historically Black colleges and universities, and this&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[552,4843,6702,3536,7445,7448,638,3542,7449,2110,1837,7446,3537,438,7447,2610],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3303"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}