MacKenzie Scott gave away $2B. Here is what she didn’t do.
She didn’t seek to solve.
Two weeks ago, news hit that MacKenzie Scott (formerly Bezos) invested a breathtaking $1.7 Billion into 100+ organizations.
Camelback Ventures — a Black-led fund investing in Black, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous people, and White women — was one of them.
(Full disclosure: Camelback’s CEO, Aaron Walker, is my husband.)
1. The gift from MacKenzie Scott was 3x the largest 7 figure gift Camelback has ever received.
2. But what was most breathtaking was what the gift was not.
3. It was not an “emerging leaders” fund or a “proximity fund” — code for funds that ask underestimated founders to jump through more hoops for less money.
4. It was not given under the pretense that the giver has answers simply because they are wealthy.
5. It was not given with strings attached to a “high risk” CEO who might not know what to do with “our” money.
6. It was given to the son of Denise Addison Walker and Eugene M. Walker, the brother of Kyle Walker, the father of Langston and Amara Walker, and the husband of Ify Offor.
7. It was given to a man who started Camelback in a 1 bedroom apartment in Bed-Stuy with two children under the age of 2. Without a retirement fund, “starter fund,” or Amex “Fund” to speak of. With six figures of student debt tied in neat bows around the five degrees obtained from the schools they told us we needed to be seen or heard.
8. The gift was given in a way that broke the rules of the traditional donor and grantee relationship by saying, “I see you. I trust you.”
9. To be sure, traditional philanthropy is not without its flaws. Traditional philanthropy is not a meritocracy. Only 7% of funding goes to Black-led non-profit organizations. Often the few Black CEOs lucky enough to receive the support they actually need are required to be pedigreed in the dominant currency of MBAs, JDs, and the Ivy League. Second, it is true that many of the Kings making the money fueling philanthropy would do more good by doing “less harm” as the author of Winners Take All teaches us.
10. It is also true, however, that as long as philanthropy is the system we have, we can, at the very least, insist that other philanthropists take MacKenzie’s lead and change the rules of this game.
11. Philanthropists can transform their impact by seeking to serve, not solve; giving without restrictions or demands; and recognizing that Black CEOs have never been high risk — we’ve simply taken more risks, by doing more with less.
Ify Walker is the CEO & Founder of Offor (www.offor.co) — the talent broker company. Offor helps CEOs and boards hire and keep c-suite executives in the social impact and corporate sector. 90% of Offor matches are Black, Latino/x, and Asian. Offor’s work has been featured in Fast Company, The Stanford Social Innovation Review, and PBS NewsHour. Prior to launching Offor, Ify raised $40M for a national non-profit.
