BREAKING: Huge YMCA donation — $18M
BREAKING: Huge YMCA donation — $18M
MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon's Jeff Bezos, gives 'transformative' gift to YMCA of Greater Charlotte; 'Miracle' donation to be used to focus on upward mobility, health equity, youth and teens
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by Cristina Bolling and Tony Mecia
The YMCA of Greater Charlotte has received $18M from billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott — the largest donation in the organization’s history, in a year that revenue dropped 40% because of Covid.
Y leaders said say they plan to use the windfall to address upward mobility, with a focus on health and nutrition programs and programs for youth and teens in underserved communities.
The organization announced in December that it had received a gift from Scott, but leaders kept the sum mum for the last four months, saying they wanted to make plans for what to do with the money before announcing how much they had received.
In an email sent to YMCA volunteers Monday that was obtained by The Ledger, YMCA president and CEO Todd Tibbits called the gift “a miracle.” He outlined how the YMCA will spend the money, based on the recommendations of a task force created to oversee the gift.
Tibbits outlined five priorities for spending the donation in his email to volunteers:
100 percent of the funds will be invested in transformative programs that are reflective of the Y’s updated vision and the donor’s emphasis on racial and gender equity and upward mobility
Initial work should be focused along Beatties Ford Road and West Boulevard utilizing as a base the existing resources of the McCrorey and Stratford Richardson branches
Recognizing the Y can be an important catalyst for change with the Scott donation as the change agent, the Y will enter into strategic partnerships to further the reach and depth of our work in these communities
As the YMCA develops new programs and services, the Y’s commitment is to prioritize a self-sustaining business model accomplished with measurable economic and social impact
The funds will not be used for existing operations or operational Capex needs (for instance, deferred maintenance)
In a news release scheduled to be distributed Tuesday, YMCA leaders called the gift “transformational” in how it will help the YMCA emerge from the pandemic.
“Last year, as we quickly realized that COVID-19 was going to be a long-term crisis and we saw our revenues decline by $40 million, we knew we would need to be a different organization on the other side of the pandemic, with an evolved business model, and focused priorities,” Tibbits said in the news release. “Ms. Scott’s gift allows us to put those plans in motion, and in a bigger way than we had originally anticipated.”
The release outlined some specific plans that will be boosted by the Scott donation, including:
Health equity initiatives that include increasing access to healthy food and nutrition education, increasing access to care and mental health services, and expanding chronic disease prevention services
Youth and teen initiatives such as summer programs in underserved areas
Transforming some YMCA locations into “health equity campuses” with programs to encourage health and wellbeing
Covid hit the YMCA hard: The organization says in 2020, its revenue fell by 40%, it cut its number of full-time workers by one-third and lost more than half of its members. The state government ordered gyms to be fully closed for 5 months during Covid, through early September, and since then, they have been operating at partial capacity.
The organization’s total revenue for 2019 was about $100M, about 80% of which came from its programs, according to publicly available tax filings. Scott’s gift exceeds the $15.3M in grants the Y took in for 2019, the most recent year for which there is data available. The Y listed nearly 6,200 employees and 8,000 volunteers.
Scott, a novelist and philanthropist, is the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and one of the richest women in the world. She gave away about $6B last year, including $410M to historically Black colleges and universities. The other main local recipient was Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont ($10M). Others in North Carolina receiving a donation included Winston-Salem State University ($30M), Elizabeth City State University ($15M) and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University ($45M).
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire; Reporting intern: David Griffith