The UNCF, the country’s largest private scholarship provider for minority students, is trying to gather $1 billion to support all 37 of its historically Black schools and institutions.
Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has committed $70 million to the UNCF. The donation is among the first to be made public in 2025 and one of Scott’s biggest single gifts to date. Scott, who is renowned for being extremely discreet, only talks about her donations on her website and waits for the beneficiaries to authenticate them.
“This extraordinary gift is a powerful vote of confidence in HBCUs and in the work of UNCF,” the non-profit’s President and CEO Dr.Michael L.Lomax told The Associated Press in a statement.
“It provides a once-in-a generation opportunity for our member institutions to build permanent assets that will support students and campuses for decades to come.”
According to Lomax, Scott’s gift will go toward UNCF’s pooled endowment, which intends to create a $370 million fund, with $10 million going to each HBCU that is a member of UNCF. The HBCUs will get a portion of that invested capital, which is expected to provide a 4% annual payout, to assist stabilize their budgets.
According to the UNCF, HBCU endowments lag behind non-HBCU endowments by 70%, making increasing them a top goal. The larger $1 billion fundraising campaign aims to assist HBCUs in resolving the financing gap they experience in comparison to other universities and institutions.
Since acknowledging $2 billion in gifts in 2024, raising her total to $19.2 billion, Scott has not made any disclosures regarding her charitable contributions. Scott currently has a net worth of almost $34 billion, according to Forbes.
According to Phil Buchanan, president of The Center for Effective Philanthropy, which conducted a three-year study on Scott’s giving, her unusual donations, which are significantly larger than most foundations give at one time and have no restrictions on when or what they can be used for, financially strengthened the nonprofits that received them.
“We didn’t see the fears people predicted come to pass,” said Buchanan, who disclosed that The Center for Effective Philanthropy received a one-time $10 million grant from Scott. Though some worried that the large gifts would cause the recipients to increase staffing too much or hurt their fundraising efforts, Buchanan said their study of 2000 nonprofits saw little evidence of that. “Folks are pretty prudent,” he said. “This shows that if you carefully vey nonprofits, we can trust them to make good use of funds.”
“We are deeply grateful for MacKenzie Scott’s continued support,” Lomax said. “By entrusting UNCF to decide how best to use these funds, she affirms that HBCUs merit investment at this scale and her generosity will strengthen our member institutions and provide pathways to success for tomorrow’s changemakers.
MacKenzie Scott donates $70 million to UNCF to support HBCUs financially
