MacKenzie Scott Grants 2026: No Application, What to Know

MacKenzie Scott grants: 4 routes checked November 9, 2026

Grantsights checked 4 ways an organization might try to reach MacKenzie Scott's giving. None is an application you can submit today. Here's where each one stood on that date.

Recently closed: nothing. The open call is the only route that ever took applications, and its final step, the March 19, 2024 award announcement, came more than 2 years before this check.

Our reading: you can't plan a budget around a MacKenzie Scott gift, and paying anyone for "access" to her team is a mistake. The useful work is building the kind of public track record any funder can check, then applying to funders who actually take applications.

How MacKenzie Scott's gifts are made: 2 pathways

Per the Yield Giving process page (opens in a new tab), checked November 9, 2026, its process "to date has included two pathways." Both are described here in Yield Giving's own terms, with nothing added about how particular recipients were chosen.

1. Quiet research. According to the process page, the team conducts quiet research to identify organizations working to advance opportunities for people in underserved communities. It evaluates them on criteria specific to their size, geography and mission, looking for stable finances, multi-year track records, measurement and evidence of outcomes, and experienced leadership representative of the community served. It does this "as privately and anonymously as we can" to limit the burden on nonprofits. Then it contacts selected organizations to offer an immediate gift "for use however they choose." The page says a small internal giving and operations team works with a large network of advisors: practitioners, consultants, nonprofit leaders and other givers.

2. The open call. The process page lists "an open call completed in 2024 with an online application and publicly posted criteria." That's the Yield Giving Open Call, which paid $640 million to 361 organizations and is covered in the next section.

Per the Yield Giving inquiries page (opens in a new tab), one more rule matters most for anyone hoping to be noticed. It doesn't invite unsolicited messages suggesting candidates, "including forwards from friends, family, or personal connections." It also says Yield Giving doesn't take part in events or media stories. A common mistake is spending staff time on a pitch letter, a nomination campaign or a conference introduction. Yield Giving's own pages say none of those is a pathway.

The 2023 open call: 6,353 applications, 361 awards

The Yield Giving Open Call was the one time MacKenzie Scott's giving took applications. According to Lever for Change's launch announcement dated March 21, 2023, it was a $250 million call for community-led, community-focused nonprofits in the United States and U.S. territories whose explicit purpose was advancing the voices and opportunities of people of meager or modest means and groups facing discrimination.

Sources: Lever for Change's Yield Giving Open Call page (opens in a new tab) and its March 2023 launch announcement, checked November 9, 2026.

Grantsights analysis of the 6,353 applications and 361 awards puts the odds at about 1 in 18, or 5.7%. That's far better than most national contests, but the budget rule shut out every nonprofit spending under $1 million a year. The $640 million total was 2.6 times the $250 million first announced, because Scott's team raised both the number of awards and the top amount after review.

Scott's own open call update (opens in a new tab), dated March 19, 2024, lists the 361 awardees and credits peer organizations and a round-2 evaluation panel with selecting them. One organization in San Francisco, 826 Valencia, which serves students ages 6 to 18, is on that list; Lever for Change's page doesn't say which awardees got $2 million and which got $1 million.

Lever for Change itself, according to the same announcement, was founded in 2019 as a nonprofit affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Its about page, checked November 9, 2026, says it's now an independent nonprofit. Its open call list showed no newer Yield Giving call on the check date.

Who gets MacKenzie Scott gifts: over $26 billion in 2,700+ gifts

Yield Giving's home page (opens in a new tab), checked November 9, 2026, says its network of staff and advisors "has yielded over $26,000,000,000 in 2,700+ gifts to non-profit teams to use as they see fit." Scott has reported each batch of gifts in an essay on the site, and most essays state a dollar total and list the organizations.

The July 2020 total is the sum of the 9 category amounts that essay lists. Grantsights checked the essay totals against the home page: the dollars add up to about $26.4 billion and the organization counts add up to exactly 2,700, which matches Yield Giving's "over $26,000,000,000 in 2,700+ gifts." Some organizations appear in more than one essay, so 2,700 counts gifts, not unique recipients.

What the numbers say about gift size

Grantsights analysis of the 9 essay batches puts the average at about $9.8 million per gift, with wide swings between batches. That's $26.39 billion divided by 2,700 gifts. The open call's average was $1.77 million. The December 2024 batch averaged about $10.1 million across 199 organizations, and the December 2025 essay's $7,166,000,000 works out to about $38.5 million per organization it names. The gifts database doesn't publish individual amounts, so these are averages, not a typical gift. Don't underestimate how much of the money goes to large, established institutions: the December 2025 list names at least 56 colleges and universities, including Howard University, Xavier University of Louisiana, Bay Mills Community College and Fort Peck Community College, plus national groups such as UNCF, Hispanic Federation and UnidosUS.

Causes

According to the December 2024 essay, roughly 75% of that year's 199 recipients supported the economic security and opportunity of people who are struggling, through affordable housing, jobs, child development, post-secondary education, health care, financial counseling, business coaching and low-interest loans. The rest worked on causes such as human rights and conservation. The July 2020 essay put its largest amounts into racial equity ($586,700,000) and economic mobility ($399,500,000). The December 2025 list adds climate and conservation groups, refugee and immigrant legal services, and global funds for women and children.

What Yield Giving's Pages Don't Tell You

Yield Giving's site is open about its process, but 5 points don't appear on it plainly. Grantsights compared the process, inquiries and gifts pages with the essays and the open call record to find them.

There's no dollar amount next to any name. The gifts database lets you filter by place and focus area, and it's useful for seeing who works near you. It won't tell you what any organization received. Amounts you see elsewhere come from recipients' own announcements, not from Yield Giving.

Recent gifts lean toward bigger institutions. The process page's criteria (stable finances, multi-year track records, evidence of outcomes, experienced leadership) describe established organizations. The only route that welcomed smaller groups, the open call, still required at least $1 million a year in operating budget.

Some money flows through other funds. 33 of the 186 names in the December 2025 essay include the word "Fund," such as Global Fund for Women, Global Greengrants Fund and American Indian College Fund. If your work fits one of those funds, check its own application process, which is a more realistic door than Yield Giving. Grantsights explains how to research a foundation's grantmaking before you write.

The open call isn't a pattern yet. It ran once. Yield Giving's process page calls it "completed in 2024," and nothing on the site or on Lever for Change's list says another is planned.

Repeat gifts happen, but nobody is promised one. Bowie State University and Dillard University, for example, appear in both the December 2020 and December 2025 essays. Nothing on the site says past recipients will receive again, so a gift should be budgeted as one-time money.

Scam warning: 4 signs a MacKenzie Scott grant offer is fake

Scams using MacKenzie Scott's name are common enough that Yield Giving keeps an authentication page (opens in a new tab) about them. Per the authentication page, checked November 9, 2026, 4 rules hold for every real gift:

1. One website. yieldgiving.com is its only website.
2. One email domain. Email about its gifts comes only from addresses ending in @yieldgiving.com, "without any variation in spelling or additional letters."
3. No lotteries or memberships. It doesn't run lotteries, membership programs, fundraising or investment offers.
4. No fees, ever. No one associated with MacKenzie Scott or Yield Giving will ask anyone to pay a fee or share a Social Security number or passwords to receive a gift.

The page warns that scams can arrive by email, social media, mail, fax, phone or text, and can copy logos and photos from the real site. If you get one, Yield Giving asks you to report it to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (opens in a new tab) and the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov (opens in a new tab). A red flag in any message: a "grant" that requires a processing fee, a gift card or a bank login. Real Yield Giving gifts never involve a fee.

Individuals should be especially careful. Yield Giving gives to nonprofit teams, not to people, so any message promising a personal MacKenzie Scott grant is fake.

What your nonprofit can do instead: 6 steps

There's nothing to apply to on November 9, 2026, so these 6 steps focus on what any nonprofit leader can control. They're good practice for every funder that researches quietly, not a way to get Yield Giving's attention.

1. Confirm your public record is accurate. Make sure your latest Form 990 is filed and correct, since it's the first document any researching funder reads. The IRS 501(c)(3) exemption requirements page (opens in a new tab) explains the rules your status depends on, and IRS Publication 557 (opens in a new tab) covers tax-exempt status in full.
2. Publish your outcomes. Yield Giving's process page names "measurement and evidence of outcomes" as a criterion. A short annual results page on your website serves every funder, not just one.
3. Show who leads. The same page looks for leadership "representative of the community served." Your website should say who your board and staff are.
4. Don't pay for access. No consultant can submit you to Yield Giving. Anyone selling that is selling something that doesn't exist.
5. Look up who works near you. Yield Giving's gifts page (opens in a new tab) filters recipients by place. Recipients near you may be partners, and some are funds that run their own grant programs.
6. Apply where applications exist. Use Grantsights grant search for programs with open deadlines, and browse community funders by state for local foundations that take letters of inquiry.

Alternatives to MacKenzie Scott grants: funders you can apply to

Unrestricted gifts on the scale of Scott's $26 billion are rare, but at least 4 kinds of funders offer something close and accept applications. Grantsights guides that cover them:

• Flexible money: grants for nonprofit operating costs lists funders that pay for salaries, rent and overhead, and grants for capacity building covers money to strengthen systems and staff.
• Local first: your community foundation is often the closest thing to a local MacKenzie Scott, and it publishes deadlines. Family foundations are smaller but often take letters of inquiry.
• Large foundations with their own rules: the MacArthur Foundation, whose former affiliate Lever for Change ran Scott's open call, the Ford Foundation and the Gates Foundation each explain what's open and what's invitation-only.
• Finding the right fit: how to find foundation grants and foundation grants for nonprofits show how to build a list of funders that take applications.

How Grantsights Checked This Guide

Grantsights read more than 25 pages on November 9, 2026, including Yield Giving's site, all 12 essays posted there, and Lever for Change's open call record, and checked every status, amount and date against the page that states it. News coverage and grant aggregator listings weren't used for any figure, and the guide doesn't repeat outside reports of individual gift amounts.

Sources

• Yield Giving: Home (opens in a new tab)
• Yield Giving: Process (opens in a new tab)
• Yield Giving: Inquiries (opens in a new tab)
• Yield Giving: Authentication (opens in a new tab)
• Yield Giving: Gifts (opens in a new tab)
• Yield Giving: Essays (opens in a new tab)
• Yield Giving: "We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting For" (December 9, 2025) (opens in a new tab)
• Yield Giving: Investing (December 18, 2024) (opens in a new tab)
• Yield Giving: Open Call Update (March 19, 2024) (opens in a new tab)
• Yield Giving: Giving Update (December 6, 2023) (opens in a new tab)
• Yield Giving: 116 Organizations Driving Change (July 28, 2020) (opens in a new tab)
• Lever for Change: Yield Giving Open Call (opens in a new tab)
• Lever for Change: Open calls (opens in a new tab)
• Lever for Change: About us (opens in a new tab)
• IRS: Exemption requirements for 501(c)(3) organizations (opens in a new tab)
• IRS: Publication 557, Tax-Exempt Status for Your Organization (opens in a new tab)
• FBI: Internet Crime Complaint Center (opens in a new tab)
• FTC: ReportFraud.ftc.gov (opens in a new tab)