Billionaire MacKenzie Scott gives $1.5M to Minnesota Native wealth-building nonprofit

The gift came as a surprise to the Minnesota nonprofit that provides assistance to aspiring Native homebuyers and entrepreneurs.

The Minnesota Star Tribune
October 9, 2024 at 12:34PM
FILE - In this March 4, 2018, file photo, then-MacKenzie Bezos arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, Calif. Galvanized by the racial justice protests and the coronavirus pandemic, charitable giving in the United States reached a record $471 billion in 2020, according to a Giving USA report released Tuesday, June 15, 2021. MacKenzie Scott stormed the philanthropy world in 2020 with $5.7 billion in unrestricted donations to hundreds of charities. The seven- and eight-figure gifts were the largest many had ever received. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
MacKenzie Scott in 2018. (Evan Agostini/The Associated Press)

Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has given an unexpected $1.5 million donation to a Minnesota wealth-building nonprofit that works with Native families.

Leaders at the Minneapolis-based Mni Sota Fund, which provides financial planning education and mortgage lending to first-time Native homebuyers, aren’t sure how they got on Scott’s radar, Executive Director Kit Fordham said.

Scott, a billionaire, author and ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has given more than $177 million to 38 Minnesota organizations in the last four years as part of her 2020 pledge to donate a majority of her wealth over her lifetime.

“It’s one of those things you dream about as you’re seeing headlines of other people getting this funding. ... It’s so nice that it happened in reality,” Fordham said.

The gift comes at a key moment for the nonprofit, which is in the midst of a campaign to raise funds to build a headquarters, to have more lending capital available and to expand its team to have more capacity to serve more of the Native communities throughout Minnesota, Fordham said.

Minnesota’s vast homeownership gap particularly impacts Native Minnesotans. Just 47% of American Indians own their home in Minnesota, compared with 77% of white households, according to 2023 Minnesota Compass data.

So far this year, the Mni Sota Fund deployed loans totaling $2.3 million to 105 families. More than 40 families have attended first-time homebuyer classes this month.

If someone pointed Scott in the direction of the Mni Sota Fund, Fordham said he would love to know so he could thank them.

“It’s like that fairy-tale story, you think you could never get this big coveted gift without doing anything for it, or at least without applying for it, pursuing it hard. And then somebody knocks on your door one day with a check,” he said. “It’s fabulous.”

about the writer

about the writer

Zoë Jackson

Reporter

Zoë Jackson is a general assignment reporter for the Star Tribune. She previously covered race and equity, St. Paul neighborhoods and young voters on the politics team.

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