An Open Letter to MacKenzie Scott: Three Ways to Change Up Philanthropy's Damaged Status Quo

Dear Ms. Scott,

In your 2019 Medium post outlining the approach you planned to take after committing to the Giving Pledge, you wrote about the “tremendous value [that] comes when people act quickly on the impulse to give.” You said, I think correctly, that the immediate results from giving “are only the beginning. Their value keeps multiplying and spreading in ways we may never know.” Since then, several outlets, including Inside Philanthropy, have covered the billions you have given and the wide-ranging impact of your giving on thousands of organizations and causes.

In that first post and the ones that followed — and through both your giving process and what you’ve given to — you have demonstrated a deep understanding of the damaging level of power wielded in this country by those with disproportionate wealth. My guess is that you have seen, up close, just how much such wealth and power injures the people who hold it, even as the existence of these fortunes, and the political heft that comes with them, destabilizes our country.

As you are obviously aware, the nonprofit sector is suffering right along with the country as a whole. Nonprofits aren’t just chronically underfunded and chronically diverted from their work by endless fundraising and funders’ unreasonable hurdles. They are also in the midst of an ongoing hiring crisis which is preventing many from delivering on their missions.

At the same time, there’s ample evidence that your trust-based approach isn’t catching on among most other funders; in fact, since the height of the pandemic, it appears that many funders are pulling back from their commitments to more trust-based practices — including multi-year, general operating support.

With these facts and your own stated goals in mind, I’m going to take the liberty of suggesting a way that your giving can bring even more value to the nonprofit sector as a whole: Invest, deeply, in organizations and efforts that are working to change philanthropy’s damaged status quo.

Support an effort to end the warehousing of charitable wealth

One such campaign is brand-new this month: Donor Revolt for Charity Reform. It’s a collaboration of donors and donor-supporting organizations calling for a series of legislative reforms that, among other things, would make it impossible to hoard charitable wealth perpetually in donor-advised funds, while also improving the payout rate for foundations.

As part of your own impressive effort to empty the safe, you have already supported two of the organizations behind Donor Revolt: the Decolonizing Wealth Project and Solidaire Network. Given the level of mainstream media coverage you generate with your every move, by signing on to Donor Revolt and financially supporting the Revolt-related work of the nonprofits behind it, you would vastly increase public awareness of just how much current law favors wealth holders at the expense of charities and the rest of us alike — knowledge that polling indicates is desperately needed.

You’re no doubt aware that more traditional, control-focused funders already consider your approach something of a one-person revolt against typical sector norms. Why not make your status official?

If you’re not ready to sign onto Donor Revolt, please at least review your giving to ensure you’re not supporting groups that oppose philanthropic reform. Here’s a list of nonprofits that have lobbied against the ACE Act, a weak bill that outlines only the barest of baby steps toward reform; it’s logical to assume that these organizations will also oppose Donor Revolt’s much bolder proposed legislation when that is brought to the table. You may be surprised to learn that one of your previous grantees, Independent Sector, is on this list.

Give to support nonprofit workers’ wages and benefits

Donor Revolt is coming at the issue of power and wealth disparities through the lens of laws that make it easy to warehouse wealth. But even if substantive reform legislation is passed, that won’t by itself make life better for the nonprofit employees who are doing the actual work.

I’ve already mentioned the nonprofit hiring crisis, but that’s not the only evidence that nonprofit workers are suffering. In my own reporting, I’ve learned, for instance, about homelessness support workers who are themselves housing insecure. And a few years ago, the Durfee Foundation’s first Lark Awards allowed one nonprofit worker to buy herself books for the first time in her adult life.

I’d like to spotlight two organizations here in the U.S. that are dedicated to educating funders about the need to fund the full cost of nonprofits’ work — particularly labor costs.

Fund The People is a decade-old nonprofit whose podcast and other efforts are bent toward a single goal: convincing funders that the “overhead myth” really is just that.

All Due Respect is akin to Fund the People, but its work is centered on nonprofit organizers and advocates.

Surely the front-line employees who serve the meals, advocate for change and provide what you’ve described as the “effort and perspective” behind philanthropy should themselves be able to afford housing, decent meals and a few books to call their own. Your investment in these organizations would bring more attention to these issues and empower them to advocate for the widest possible diversity of nonprofit workers.

Given that without people, there are no programs, imagine the ripple effect that would be possible if all nonprofits were able to pay competitive wages, provide paid time off and health insurance, and stop contributing to the financial stresses of their own employees.

Support, or at least follow, Crappy Funding Practices on LinkedIn

You’ve written movingly and accurately about the burdensome requirements that donors too frequently force nonprofits to navigate. After working for Inside Philanthropy for more than three years, I once thought that I also understood that problem.

Then I started following the Crappy Funding Practices LinkedIn page. As my recent coverage of that effort came together, it became painfully clear that I had no idea just how burdensome and how widespread — not to mention unnecessary, nonsensical, even downright damaging — such practices are.

Crappy Funding Practices is currently operating with an all-volunteer team. Its reach is severely limited, not only because volunteers have limited time they can dedicate, but also because calling out problematic funders publicly — and facilitating others in doing so — can put people’s careers in danger. Your public endorsement would bring mainstream media attention to bear on the unnecessary hurdles nonprofits are forced to step through to secure grants just a minuscule fraction of the size of your donations. If the CFP team is ready to take the step of accepting a monetary gift, you could also provide them with a budget to hire help so they can address the backlog of more than 100 submissions they had during my reporting on them. At the very least, please check out the page; I guarantee it’s time well spent.

Ms. Scott, you’ve already given generously to philanthropy-serving organizations, affinity groups and collaborative funding initiatives, demonstrating your concern for the health of this sector and your belief in what philanthropy can accomplish. You have already had a huge impact on the organizations you have supported and hopefully, through them, on the issues those nonprofits are working to address.

With your combined wealth and standing, you have a unique opportunity to have a similar impact on the entire philanthrosphere — whether other wealth holders decide to follow your example or not. To my mind, that would result in the most tremendous value of all.

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