Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donates $133.5 million to education nonprofit
MacKenzie Scott attends the 2018 Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Taylor Hill/FilmMagic/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON - Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has made yet another substantial financial donation, this time to an education nonprofit that supports students in need.
Scott, who has a fortune estimated by Forbes at $59 billion, donated $133.5 million to Communities in Schools (CIS), a national organization that works with 3,000 schools nationwide to support at-risk students by providing them with resources and assistance to help them excel in school.
"With the pandemic continuing to interrupt public education and students’ lives, the work of Communities In Schools has never been more important," Elaine Wynn, chairman of the CIS Board of Directors said in a statement. "This generous gift will allow us to provide thousands more students with a significantly improved educational experience and the help they need to graduate from high school and go on to rewarding lives."
According to a release from CIS, Scott’s gift is the largest donation ever given to the nonprofit.
Scott is no stranger to giving massive donations to groups and organizations.
Her last three rounds of financial contributions have totaled nearly $8.7 billion, with much of the money going towards pandemic relief, colleges and universities, and organizations that serve minority communities.
After the police killing of George Floyd, Scott funded the top recipients of racial equity donations in 27 states.
In 2020, Scott reflected on her philanthropy in a blog post titled "No Dollar Signs This Time," saying that she wouldn’t reveal how much she had given to charity since her last round of donations that same year, to reduce the attention she draws. Instead, she wrote a reflection on what philanthropy means.
"I’m not including here any amounts of money I’ve donated since my prior posts," Scott wrote in the post. "I want to let each of these incredible teams speak for themselves first if they choose to, with the hope that when they do, media focuses on their contributions instead of mine."
FOX5 Atlanta, FOX 6 Milwaukee, and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
This story was reported from Washington, D.C.