Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott surprises Minnesota nonprofit, Junior Achievement North, with $1.9M gift

Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has stunned one other Minnesota nonprofit with an sudden massive donation, giving $1.9 million to Junior Achievement North.

On Tuesday, the St. Paul-based academic group, which serves 80,000 college students in Minnesota, North Dakota and western Wisconsin, introduced the donation from Scott, an creator and the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

“It was a second of jaw-drop, simply a lot emotion … that she would acknowledge the work that we’re doing in the neighborhood and make such a beneficiant funding in our college students and our work,” mentioned CEO Sara Dziuk, who discovered concerning the donation July 1.

The Minnesota nonprofit is certainly one of 26 Junior Achievement operations that acquired a donation from Scott out of 102 throughout the nation. Scott is giving a complete of $38.8 million to Junior Achievement USA and its native operations — the biggest reward from a single donor in its 103-year historical past.

Throughout the previous two years, Scott has funneled greater than $78 million to Minnesota nonprofits — together with Huge Brothers Huge Sisters Twin Cities, Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity and a number of other different native organizations this yr, together with three Boys & Women Membership associates and St. Paul-based Deliberate Parenthood North Central States.

The rash of shock donations to nonprofits throughout the U.S. is a part of Scott’s pledge to offer away a majority of her wealth in her lifetime. Scott, who has an estimated internet price of about $40 billion, in keeping with Forbes journal, hardly ever speaks publicly about her sudden and important philanthropy.

At Junior Achievement North, which is without doubt one of the largest Junior Achievement native operations within the nation, the donation is nearly 40% of its whole annual funds of $5 million. The group has two studying labs within the Twin Cities and faucets greater than 5,000 volunteers a yr to show Okay-12 college students about totally different careers and necessary life abilities comparable to learn how to funds.

Dziuk mentioned it is too quickly for the nonprofit to know the way it will spend the cash, however she mentioned it’s going to assist broaden applications to assist extra college students of shade and low-income college students.

Like different Minnesota nonprofits, Junior Achievement North is receiving the cash from Scott as an “unrestricted” reward, which implies the nonprofits can use the funds in any manner, as a substitute of grants designated for a particular program or function. Dziuk mentioned she’s going to suggest placing among the cash into its endowment to extend scholarships for college students in want and so as to add staffing on the group, which has about 40 staff.

“It is simply unbelievable for us to have a present like this,” she mentioned. “It provides to the credibility of our group and in a time once we need to construct tomorrow’s workforce, a various workforce that has the talents wanted to achieve success.”