Over the past four years, billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has given grants totaling $132.5 million to Native American nonprofits, who have historically struggled with a lack of trust and funding from private philanthropy. While only 0.8% of the $17.3 billion she has given to over 2,300 charities, her donations have made a difference.
Furthermore, Scott’s ongoing philanthropy isn’t given to any Native American nonprofit but to those run by Native Americans—and no strings are attached.
“For a long time, says Miriam Jorgensen, research director of Harvard’s Project on Indigenous Governance and Development, “we saw a lot of the money that was going to Native causes, and concerns were going to non-Indigenous-controlled museums and art foundations and education funds, so it’s perfect in that context to look at (these gifts) and see it’s almost all Native-controlled organizations… That’s an important contrast of this giving.”
A Meager Percentage of Nonprofit Grants
Unfortunately, Scott’s pattern of giving also reflects broader trends in US charity foundations, with less than 0.5% of funding going to Native American nonprofits as of 2019. Her charity doesn’t even represent the most significant funding for Native American groups, with the Bush, Northwest Area, and Kellogg foundations routinely making donations specifically to Native American-controlled nonprofit organizations. It just so happens that Scott’s gifts have been highly publicized.
Benefits Are Still Having a Major Impact
Rather than leaving a bad taste in the mouth; charity leaders say that Scott’s efforts have increased visibility on the issue. “It made a big difference in how individual donors and foundations and corporations perceived us,” says Robert Martin, president of the Institute of American Indian Arts. The Santa Fe college received $5 million in 2020.
“There’s no private foundation that I have dealt with in the 20 years I’ve been at the helm of First Nations where the process for getting $8 million if it was available, came that easy,” says Michael Roberts, leader of the First Nations Development Institute.
The money Roberts received doubled the institute’s endowment, enabling the purchase of a new building and allowing it to give more grants than ever to Native American-led organizations—that wasn’t all.
“All of a sudden, foundations feel comfortable giving us million-dollar grants as opposed to a quarter of a million-dollar grants,” Roberts says.
Because Scott gave money to Roberts’ organization, other foundations were apparently willing to do the same. This reflects how invisible most Native American nonprofits are to both the public and charity foundations and how one public-facing figure’s donation can put a nonprofit on the map.
After the Native Forward Scholars Fund received $20 million from Scott, Angelique Albert, CEO of the fund, says that average annual giving has gone up from anywhere between $5 and $25 to upwards of $1,000. Even if these spikes in giving only last for a short while, the difference these nonprofits and charities can make in even one community will echo through hundreds of lives.
Freely Given, Better Used
These donations allow nonprofits to invest in expansion efforts, reach further into their communities, and hire staff to get better organized. Freely given gifts like Scotts enable these nonprofit organizations to invest in the community and plan for long-term growth rather than relying on restrictive government grants.
Outlook on Indigenous Philanthropy
Scott’s giving has been interpreted as the second phase of a recent push toward increasing Native American philanthropy. It’s unclear whether a third wave is on the horizon. Still, giving directly to Native American nonprofit organizations is undoubtedly making a big difference in the lives of indigenous communities.
