Southern Partners Fund Receives $5M Grant, its Second from Mackenzie Scott

Atlanta, GA: March, 2024—California-based novelist and philanthropist Mackenzie Scott has awarded Southern Partners Fund (SPF) another unsolicited and unrestricted gift of $5 million, one of a select few nonprofits to receive a second grant thus far. Since signing on to the Giving Pledge in 2019, she has given almost $17 billion to approximately 2,000 nonprofit organizations, all working to advance opportunities for those facing rampant inequities throughout our nation and planet. Following a year in which total U.S. charitable giving declined (-10.5% adjusted for inflation in 2022, according to the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy’s Annual Report on Philanthropy), and total giving for 2023 is expected to have dropped even more (these numbers are not yet available), Mackenzie Scott is continuing to buck the trend when it comes to major donor participation.

“This second multi-million-dollar gift from Mackenzie Scott is a highly significant stamp of approval for SPF’s brand of ‘Democratic Philanthropy,’” added Fernando Cuevas, Jr., SPF’s Executive Director, and one of its Founding Members, “in which a membership base of current and former grassroots organizers, mostly of color, choose a Board of Directors and determine who joins our growing number of grantee partners from the rural Southeast Region (12 states). Moreover, it provides SPF with the stability to provide multi-year grants, while nearly doubling SPF’s average grant.”

Though these funds will be used for different purposes, preparing Southern rural communities for another heated election year is SPF’s first priority. This timely gift has enabled SPF to send a Request for Proposals for one-year grants of up to $40k, a new SPF record, to grassroots organizations that have been fighting for voter rights, in some cases, since the ‘60s.

Despite close to $5 million in grants to 100+ Southern rural grassroots organizations in the South since receiving Mackenzie Scott’s first gift, SPF has been able to grow its endowment significantly and maintain robust programming through its Social Justice Institute (SJI), which among other programs, houses the Young Leaders for Social Change and Capacity Building fellowships. SPF’s Senior Development Consultant, Leroy Johnson, himself another Founding Member, stated “This grant further recognizes the brilliant work of rural grassroots organizations across the Southeast who have been toiling for decades and continue to toil both on the frontline and in the ‘Belly of the Beast’ of white supremacy, nullification and some of the most despicable, heinous and amoral forms of ‘Racism’ anywhere in the world for justice, equity, and progressive power, and all with little outward recognition. We salute Mackenzie and her team for their thoughtfulness and for seeing the worthiness of the work and the vision for sustainable progressive change that is obtainable for the region and the country.”

Mackenzie Scott, acknowledging that she learned this saying from within disability communities, wrote in one of her blog posts: “‘Nothing about us without us.’ For me, it’s another beautiful and powerful reminder. I needn’t ask those I care about what to say to them, or what to do for them. I can share what I have with them to stand behind them as they speak and act for themselves. For SPF, this is what philanthropy is all about. SPF’s leadership, deeply acquainted with the challenge of measuring impact in the way traditional funders have historically required, is especially empathetic when it comes to its grantmaking principles. SPF trusts its grantee partners much like Mackenzie Scott is trusting SPF and hundreds of other nonprofits with her game-changing gifts, and we hope other large funders follow in her steps.

*Photo courtesy of Young West Virginia, another SPF grantee partner led by an alum of SPF's Young Leaders for Social Change fellowship.

Southern Partners Fund (SPF) is a 501(c)3 regional community foundation located in Atlanta, GA, governed by people of color grassroots leaders from rural communities across 12 states in the Southeast. Its mission is to support grassroots community organizations in the rural South seeking racial, economic and environmental justice by providing financial resources, technical assistance, training and access to systems of information and power.

www.southernpartnersfund.org

P: (404)-541-9091