When a nonprofit serving Los Angeles’ homeless and foster youth applied last year for a slice of billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott’s latest round of giving, the group hoped to get $1 million.
Instead, the team at Youth Emerging Stronger learned this week it was one of almost 300 community groups nationwide to be awarded $2 million.
“It doubled the amount that we were hoping for,” said Mark Supper, chief executive and president of Youth Emerging Strong, adding, “We’re a bit dumbfounded by it, but we’re so happy.”
Scott, who co-founded Amazon with her ex-husband, chief executive Jeff Bezos, donated $640 million to more than 350 community groups nationwide, more than doubling the amount she initially planned to give, according to Yield Giving, Scott’s website. Of that pot, $137 million went to 76 organizations that serve Californians. The majority received $2 million, but about 80 organizations received $1 million.
Read more: Letters to the Editor: More billionaires should be like MacKenzie Scott and give away their fortunes
Supper’s nonprofit was among the 25 Southern California groups that shared $47 million.
“For us, it’s really a transformational kind of gift,” Supper said. “It allows us to really think long term in our strategies and our approaches.”
The news of the massive donation is still only days old, and Supper said his team is still working on specific plans for how to use the money. But he said YES will definitely focus on expanding housing and mental health services for the vulnerable youth, ages 12 to 24, whom it serves.
Supper said his nonprofit was notified recently that it was among the finalists from Scott’s open call — which got more than 6,000 applicants — for “community-led, community-focused organizations whose explicit purpose is to advance the voices and opportunities of individuals and families of meager or modest means, and groups who have met with discrimination and other systemic obstacles.”
“We’re just so pleased that they saw the value of our work,” Supper said. “It’s a critical age bracket that I think a lot of people don’t spend a lot of time on when we look at the unhoused issue.”
Among the other Southern California awardees are the LGBTQ Center in Long Beach; Pacoima Beautiful, an environmental justice group in the San Fernando Valley; Reality Changers, a San Diego group working with first-generation college students; and the California Native Vote Project, which advocates for Native American community, according to Scott’s database of gifts.
Read more: Jeff Bezos promised $100 million after Maui’s wildfire. No one knows where it’s going
This round of donations follows many others from Scott, who has pledged to donate more than half of her wealth, which is estimated at about $32 billion, according to Forbes. Scott has typically given to organizations without an application process, but this time she worked with philanthropic group Lever for Change to analyze the thousands of applicants.
“Grateful to Lever for Change and everyone on the evaluation and implementation teams for their roles in creating this pathway to support for people working to improve access to foundational resources in their communities,” Scott wrote on her website Tuesday. “They are vital agents of change.”
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
