Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott gives $700K to Junior Achievement of North Central Ohio

Billionaire MacKenzie Scott has donated $700,000 to Junior Achievement of North Central Ohio.

The money will allow the local JA to reach significantly more local students to teach them how to manage their money and about career opportunities, the local chapter's president said Tuesday.

Lori McCleese, president of Junior Achievement North Central Ohio, which is based in Stark County's Jackson Township, said representatives of Scott contacted her in July. In a communication, her foundation told McCleese that Scott wanted to give the local chapter $700,000.

The donation is among a total of $38.8 million that Scott has given Junior Achievement USA and 26 chapters in the U.S. It's the largest gift in the national organization's 103-year history.

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McCleese said that her chapter has already received the funds, and they come with no restrictions on how they might be used. She said it's the largest one-time gift the chapter, which now covers 16 Ohio counties, has received since it was founded in the 1950s. The record before Scott's gift was $270,000 over two years from the Burton D. Morgan Foundation. The donation is a little more than half of the chapter's annual $1.3 million budget.

"We experienced so much growth over the past two years. That can be a little daunting to manage the growth, so the gift came at a great time. I was ecstatic. Because at the end of the day what it means is we’ll be able to reach more students," McCleese said. "It was a wonderful surprise. ... I love the way (Scott) is researching existing nonprofits and investing her philanthropic dollars in organizations that are already doing great work. And she’s clearly focused on youth development and economic empowerment."

Plans for the MacKenzie Scott money for Junior Achievement

McCleese said she and her chapter's board have not yet decided what to do with all of the money. She's working on proposing a new three-year strategic plan.

The chapter likely would use part of the gift to hire an additional program manager to oversee more of the agency's programs at local schools. Scott's gift allows that hiring to take place about a year ahead of schedule. That could allow the local JA's reach to expand from 22,000 students to more than 30,000 per school year.

That would free up McCleese, who has taught some of the programs, to focus more on fundraising and recruiting volunteer career professionals to teach the programs to students who are mainly in grades 6 through 12. The programs include in-person instruction, remote instruction and videos shot by local volunteer professionals.

Scott, a novelist and co-founder of Amazon with her ex, Jeff Bezos, has contributed billions of dollars to nonprofit organizations around the U.S. the past two years. That includes $4.5 million to Habitat for Humanity East Central Ohio earlier this year. And $10 million for Goodwill Industries of Greater Cleveland and East Central Ohio late in 2020.

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Gift comes amid Junior Achievement growth

McCleese said when she became president of the Junior Achievement North Central Ohio in 2019, the former three-county chapter, which that year merged with a 12-county Junior Achievement chapter, had a budget of $700,000 a year and a staff of seven. It's since expanded to a staff of 17, and it now has a network of about 3,000 volunteers.

The chapter covers Ashland, Carroll, Coshocton, Crawford, Holmes, Knox, Marion, Medina, Morrow, Portage, Richland, Stark, Summit, Tuscarawas, Wayne and Wyandot counties.

Junior Achievement had to grapple with the challenges of the pandemic when volunteers could not visit classrooms, employers were reluctant to allow their employees to face infection risks in going into classrooms and now a labor shortage has made it more difficult to recruit volunteers.

Junior Achievement has run financial literacy, entrepreneurship and career literacy programs for years with the school districts of Jackson, Plain, Canton, Lake, North Canton, Marlington, Perry, Massillon, Minerva and Louisville, said McCleese. It's just started working with Alliance, Tuslaw and Osnaburg.

"To be able to roll that out to more schools in the area would be a priority for us,” said McCleese, who added that JA helps school districts comply with the state's new requirement that high schools teach financial literacy as part of a semester-long course. "Our goal is to be in every Canton school."

McCleese said JA programs teach students how much certain careers pay, what a career in the trades is like and how students do not need a college degree to be financially successful.

"A lot of time our students end up in the same career that our JA volunteer was in," McCleese said.

McCleese said grants and donations from foundations, corporations and individuals sustain the program.

Reach Robert at robert.wang@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @rwangREP.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: MacKenzie Scott gives $700K to local Junior Achievement