Finding the Village

One of the goals of HEAPA is to research program designs dreamed up by other innovators.  So when I heard that Mackenzie Scott and Jeff Bezos had collectively given $260 million to over 4,000 affordable housing and homeless service organizations, I wondered how I could learn who they were, and why they deserved the ex-couple’s support.  MacKenzie had given $2 million recently to a local, very deserving organization I helped audit, and if the rest of the gifts were to similarly effective groups, I wanted to know more about them.

Fortunately, Mackenzie has chosen to help us learn.  The website she created (Yield Giving) contains narratives and linked databases to $17 billion she has given away to 2,300 organizations.  It provides us with her reasoning for the choices she made, and directs us to the recipients and their work.  It is a treasure well worth reading.