MacKenzie Scott rewrote the rules of philanthropy. Who will follow her lead?

The next wave of philanthropic courage is overdue. We need the next billionaire—or board of trustees—brave enough to say: we don’t need another five-year strategy to fix inequity. We just need to fund the people solving it right now.

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While MacKenzie Scott has moved billions, the silence from corporate America and traditional philanthropy is deafening. Diversity pledges have turned into anti-DEI PR campaigns. Multimillion-dollar commitments made in 2020 have quietly expired, buried under quarterly earnings calls and leadership changes.

When history looks back at this decade, MacKenzie Scott’s name will stand out not for the books she sold or the headlines she made, but for the billions she quietly and unapologetically moved into the hands of those long overlooked by traditional philanthropy.

While others wrote checks with press releases in 2020, Scott wrote new rules for redistribution. She directed billions to HBCUs, grassroots organizations, and Black-led institutions that had been invisible to most major donors for generations. She didn’t ask for quarterly reports or branding placements. She asked one question: who has been doing the work all along, and why haven’t they been funded accordingly?

But here’s the question we need to ask now: Who is next?

The Economic Context

It is not just a moral issue. The macroeconomics are turning against Black-led enterprises and Black households, and philanthropy is standing by.

Trade policy and tariffs. New U.S. tariffs are estimated to raise core consumer import prices and production costs. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco projects that an across-the-board 25% tariff could raise consumer goods prices by about 2.2% and investment goods by 9.5%. For small and midsize consumer packaged goods companies—many of which are founded or led by people of color—tariffs undermine margins, force cost-shifting, and erode competitive standing.

Labor and employment. Recent data show that more than 300,000 Black women have exited the U.S. workforce, linked to federal layoffs, DEI rollbacks, and tech industry contractions. Black women make up roughly 12% of the federal workforce, though they are only about 7% of the U.S. labor force. The outcome: Black women heads of household feel the ripple effects through job loss, income instability, and fewer opportunities to start or scale enterprises.

Safety nets under stress. During the 2025 U.S. government shutdown, SNAP benefits for roughly 42 million people were at risk of being halted or cut. When safety nets fray, the entire Black economy feels it: higher household strain, reduced consumer spending power, and less capital circulating through Black-owned businesses.

Where Philanthropic Capital Actually Goes

According to the Equitable Giving Lab’s Communities of Color Index, organizations serving communities of color received just 2.9% of all U.S. philanthropic giving in 2022. Within that, those serving Black and African American communities received only 0.61% of total giving. The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy found that funding for Black communities peaked at 1.9% of total giving in 2020 and fell back to 1.3% by 2022. Community foundations direct only about 1% of their funding to Black communities, despite Black Americans representing nearly 15% of the population.

Echoing Green and The Bridgespan Group documented that in 2019, early-stage Black-led organizations were operating under significantly disadvantaged financial conditions compared with their white-led peers: revenues were on average 24% smaller, and unrestricted net assets—the flexible reserves organizations can deploy as needed—were 76% smaller.

Why the Gap Is So Costly

Black-led nonprofits and enterprises often operate on much smaller budgets and with fewer resources than their white-led counterparts. The funding gap means less capacity, less growth, fewer jobs, and less innovation.

Because the economy of Black households is under pressure, the demand for community-based solutions and entrepreneurship is rising. Yet philanthropic investment is shrinking in relative terms.

When philanthropy stays silent, corporate America and mainstream funders get off the hook. They can make public statements about “empowering diverse entrepreneurs” or “investing in Black communities” without actually moving capital in a meaningful way.

The Case for Action

Investing in Black-led organizations is not charity. It is strategy—and it is how we future-proof our communities.

For philanthropic funders, it means supporting proven talent and knowledge already embedded in communities. For corporate America, when Black-led CPG companies, Black entrepreneurs, and Black-owned supply chain partners thrive, corporations win too—through innovation, market expansion, and economic resilience.

For the broader economy, when Black women heads of household maintain employment and when Black-led enterprises grow, entire ecosystems strengthen, creating job