MacKenzie Scott donates $133 million to Communities in Schools

Another money bomb has fallen from the bank account of MacKenzie Scott, this time a large donation to support a group that provides services inside schools for at-risk students, aimed at helping them thrive and graduate. Communities In Schools, a network of nonprofit groups that work in K-12 schools across the country, said Thursday that the national office and its affiliates had been given $133.5 million from Scott, the billionaire philanthropist who has been doling out her fortune at an astounding rate. Since divorcing from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Scott has made donations of more than $8 billion. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Scott has also given significant gifts to colleges, including more than $800 million to historically Black colleges and universities. She no longer discloses grant recipients, leaving it to the organizations to make information about the gifts public if they so choose.

As with other Scott donations, Communities In Schools got a call out of the blue from her staff with the news that she wanted to make the contribution, according to its president and CEO, Rey Saldaņa. Communities in Schools trains and provides staff members who work out of about 2,900 high-poverty schools in 517 districts across the country. These staff provide a range of academic and other support services meant to help students succeed and graduate. It’s a version of the community school model, which considers academic success linked to many other factors that affect children’s lives and works to offer wraparound services. Counselors might help a family submit an application for public housing, access a food bank, provide emergency financial assistance to a family or arrange health care — in addition to providing tutoring or other academic supports. “We think in order for students to be turned on to learning, they have to be turned onto living. The living is sometimes the most important,” Saldaņa said. Absent a program like his, he said, teachers often fill the gaps — helping a student figure out where to get affordable eyeglasses or locate college scholarships. But overloaded teachers are burned out, and he said having someone dedicated to this task makes the services more consistent. He said even school counselors, who do some of the same work, are sometimes pulled into other tasks needed to keep the school running.