Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donates $20 million to Fresno Unified School District

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Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donates $20 million to Fresno Unified School District

Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated $20 million to public schools in a part of California where about one in five people lives in poverty.

The Fresno Unified School District superintendent Bob Nelson said there were 20 million reasons to be excited, as officials announced that the donation will go to the Fresno Unified Education Foundation.

The foundation's board will decide how to allocate the money over the next several months, but two ideas are already top of mind, Fresno Unified School district spokeswoman Nikki Henry told MarketWatch. One of the ways to pay for college scholarships is for high school seniors. The foundation was able to fund 70 of the applicants last year, but the foundation only able to fund 70 of the applicants, Henry said. She said that Scott's donation will allow the foundation to at least quadruple that amount.

The idea is to create an investment strategy that will allow Scott's donation to regenerate itself in some way every year, Henry said. She said we could generate up to $800,000 a year in interest if we invest the total amount, based on conservative estimates. We probably won't invest the whole $20 million, but it gives you an idea that we're looking to regenerate hundreds of thousands of dollars each year with seed funding. Henry said that the Fresno Unified School District is California's third largest school district, serving more than 70,000 students, 83% of whom are considered low-income. Fresno is located in California's Central Valley, a farming area in the middle of the state where much of the United States food comes from. The county's median income was $57,109 as of 2020, and an estimated 17.1% of people lived below the federal poverty line, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The largest single donation to the Fresno Unified Education Foundation was $30,000 donated by Amazon AMZN prior to Scott's gift, according to the Fresno Bee. Scott is the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Scott has become one of the most closely watched and influential U.S. philanthropists, giving out more than $12 billion to nonprofits across the country since their split in 2019.

Scott has focused her giving on grassroots groups working with marginalized communities. She has also given gifts to well-established national nonprofits such as Habitat for Humanity $436 million Boys Girls Clubs of America $281 million Planned Parenthood $275 million and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America $123 million Scott is known for her giving, meaning she donates money with no strings attached, and doesn't tell the organization it must spend the money in a certain way.

In a March 2022 Medium post, Scott wrote that when our team focuses on a system in which people are struggling, we don't assume that we, or any other single group, can know how to fix it. We don't advocate for specific policies or reforms. We want to have a portfolio of organizations that support the ability of all people to participate in solutions. This means a focus on the needs of those whose voices have been underrepresented. Read next: Sheryl Sandberg's $3 million to aid the ACLU fight for abortion rights: This issue is the one where we have taken the biggest step backwards.