By Felecia Hatcher
Where is the next wave of philanthropic courage? 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.”
While MacKenzie Scott has moved billions, the silence from corporate America and traditional philanthropy is deafening. Multi-million-dollar commitments made in 2020 have quietly expired, buried under 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 through her divorce from Jeff Bezos, but for the billions she unapologetically moved into the hands of those long overlooked.
While others wrote checks with press releases in 2020, Scott wrote new rules for redistribution. She directed billions to HBCUs and Black-led institutions that had been invisible to donors for generations. She asked one question: who has been doing the work all along and why haven’t they been funded accordingly?
Here’s the question we need to ask now: Who is next?
The Economic Context: Why This Matters Now
It is not just a moral issue. The macroeconomics are turning against Black-led enterprises and 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%.
Labor and employment: Recent data shows that more than 300,000 Black women have exited the U.S. workforce, linked to 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 and fewer opportunities to start or scale enterprises.
Social safety nets in peril: 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, and less capital circulates through Black-owned businesses.
If Money Is Leaving Black Communities, Where Is It Going?
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.
Echoing Green and The Bridgespan Group documented that early-stage Black-led organizations operate under significantly disadvantaged financial conditions compared with their white-led peers. Black-led organizations’ revenues were on average 24% smaller, and their unrestricted net assets were 76% smaller.
In plain terms, the majority of philanthropic grants and foundation funding never reach Black-led enterprises or communities.
Why This Gap Is So Harmful
Black-led nonprofits and enterprises often operate on much smaller budgets and with fewer resources than their white-led counterparts. Because the economy of Black households is under pressure, with job losses and rising costs from tariffs, the demand for solutions and entrepreneurship is rising. Yet philanthropic investment is shrinking.
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.
The Case for Action
Investing in Black-led organizations will be 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-owned CPG companies, entrepreneurs, and supply chain partners thrive, these corporations win too, through economic resilience.
MacKenzie Scott showed us what radical trust looks like. She disrupted a system built on gatekeeping and savior complexes, and replaced it with belief and equity. But one woman cannot balance centuries of exclusion.
So I ask again: Who is next?
And more importantly: What will you do today to make sure it’s you?
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