Central Florida Y, Heart of Florida United Way get ‘one-in-a-lifetime’ donations from MacKenzie Scott
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Two Central Florida charities are getting what they call “once-in-a-lifetime” grants from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the company’s first accountant.
The Heart of Florida United Way and the YMCA of Central Florida acknowledged Friday they are among the 384 charities and institutions across the nation selected to receive a collective $4.2 billion in pandemic aid from Scott.
Although both declined to say how much they’ll receive, the grants are expected to be at least several million dollars apiece. The nonprofit RIP Medical Debt, for instance, was given $50 million for its work paying off overdue medical bills, helping struggling residents across the county, including those in Central Florida. And in Gainesville, Santa Fe College reported it is receiving $40 million, the largest grant in its history.
“Everyone wants to know how much, and at the moment there’s no real purpose to that other than comparing notes and seeing for instance, ‘Did I get a bigger grant than you?’” said Jeff Hayward, the Heart of Florida United Way’s president and CEO. “The bigger story is what we’re going to do with it, and we don’t know that yet. This is a once-in-a-lifetime grant and we want to impact as many lives as possible with substantive and permanent change.”
When Scott, an author, divorced Bezos last year, she received 4 percent of the outstanding stock in Amazon, or 19.7 million shares, and pledged to give away much of her wealth to worthy causes. In an online post Tuesday, she wrote that the coronavirus pandemic had prompted her to accelerate her giving.
Her team of advisors, she said, “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 beneficiaries include food banks, emergency relief funds and those addressing long-term systemic inequities deepened by the current economic crisis.
An undisclosed amount, for instance, has gone to the nonprofit Self-Help Credit Union, which has six branches in Florida, including in Apopka and DeLand.
“MacKenzie Scott is trying to change the face of philanthropy,” Hayward said. “And she’s trying to get others who have [wealthy foundations] to do the same as she’s doing — giving large, unrestricted grants that can be transformative for organizations and communities.”
In the world of philanthropy, such unrestricted funds are rare. Many come with strings on how the money can be spent, sometimes limiting their effectiveness.
But Scott said the 384 organizations had been “carefully selected” and that their teams have “dedicated their lives to helping others, working and volunteering and serving real people face-to-face at bedsides and tables, in prisons and courtrooms and classrooms, on streets and hospital wards and hotlines and frontlines of all types and sizes, day after day after day.”
The organizations, notably, did not apply for the grants, and they were informed the money was a one-time — and only one-time — gift, Hayward said.
At the YMCA, President and CEO Dan Wilcox released a statement saying, “We are overjoyed by this unexpected blessing and deeply grateful to Ms. Scott for her generosity. It is a tremendous affirmation and testament to the positive impact the Y makes across Central Florida every day to strengthen our community.”
Like the United Way, the Y plans to meet with its board members and “evaluate the best use” for the money, Wilcox said.
Hayward said he expected to announce a plan early next year.
