The billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott’s no-strings, no-hassle giving approach has proven particularly valuable to Native American nonprofits, whose history with private philanthropy has long been marked by a lack of trust and paltry funding. Although Scott’s donations to Native American nonprofits are a small subset of the billions she has donated since 2020, they are unique because they have gone to groups led by Native Americans. Scott gave 37 grants totaling $132.5 million to Native American-serving nonprofits over the past four years. That’s 0.8% of the $17.3 billion she has given to more than 2,300 charities so far and reflects philanthropy’s sparse giving to Native American-led organizations.
