When a nonprofit serving homeless and foster youth in Los Angeles applied for a portion of billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott's latest round of donations last year, the group hoped to get $1 million.
Instead, the Youth Emerging Stronger team learned this week that it was one of nearly 300 community groups across the country that would receive $2 million.
“It was double the amount we expected,” said Mark Supper, CEO and president of Youth Emerging Strong, adding, “We're a little shocked, but we're very happy.”
Scott, who co-founded Amazon with her ex-husband, CEO Jeff Bezos, donated $640 million to more than 350 community groups across the country, more than double the amount she initially planned to donate, according to Yield Giving, the company's website. Scott. Of that fund, $137 million went to 76 organizations serving Californians. Most received $2 million, but about 80 organizations received $1 million.
Supper's nonprofit was among 25 Southern California groups that shared $47 million.
“For us, it's really a transformative kind of gift,” Supper said. “It allows us to really think long-term in our strategies and approaches.”
News of the massive donation is only a few 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, it serves.
Supper said his nonprofit was recently notified that it was among the finalists for Scott's open call, which received more than 6,000 applicants, for “community-led, community-centered organizations whose explicit purpose is to advance the voices and opportunities for individuals and families of low or modest means, and groups that have faced discrimination and other systemic obstacles.”
“We're so glad they saw the value in our work,” Supper said. “It's a critical age group that I think a lot of people don't spend a lot of time on when we look at the issue of homelessness.”
Other Southern California honorees include the LGBTQ Center in Long Beach; Pacoima Beautiful, an environmental justice group in the San Fernando Valley; Reality Changers, a San Diego group that works with first-generation college students; and the California Native Vote Project, which advocates for the Native American community, according to Scott's gift database.
This round of donations follows many others from Scott, who has pledged to give away more than half of his wealth, which is estimated at about $32 billion, according to Forbes. Scott has typically donated to organizations without an application process, but this time he worked with the philanthropic group Lever for Change to sift through the thousands of applicants.
“Grateful to Lever for Change and all members of the evaluation and implementation teams for their role in creating this pathway to support people working to improve access to critical resources in their communities,” Scott wrote on her site website on Tuesday. “They are vital agents of change.”
