Billionaire MacKenzie Scott awarded the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) with a “transformational” $70 million gift towards strengthening historically Black colleges and universities, the organization announced.
This gift follows Scott’s $10 million contribution in 2020, which helped bolster the UNCF emergency reserve fund, according to the release from the organization. Overjoyed, UNCF President and CEO Michael L. Lomax said he nearly “lost it” when he received the news of the donation — which was seven times the amount of Scott’s 2020 gift.
“She is Saint MacKenzie Scott,” Lomax told ABC News, adding, “She is rewriting the book on philanthropy, not just in this country, but in the world.”
The Associated Press was first to report the news of Scott’s recent gift. Thus far, the billionaire philanthropist and author has given $80 million in blind, unrestricted financial support to the nation’s largest private scholarship fund for historically Black higher education institutions.
Sending his heartfelt thanks to Scott, Lomax added: “[Scott] is choosing institutions like HBCUs, which have been starved by major philanthropists, with few exceptions in the past, and she’s setting a new standard.”
Over the years, Scott, who was previously married to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has had an estimated net worth at over $30 billion and has pledged to donate most of her wealth to non-profit organizations like UNCF.
The contribution this week was one of her first to be disclosed in 2025 and boosts the $1 billion UNCF Capital Campaign, a philanthropic effort launched in 2021 to provide HBCUs with critical resources.
The organization said the $70 million gift will be invested in the UNCF Members Pooled Endowment Fund, an initiative formed to strengthen the “long-term financial health” of all 37 private UNCF member HBCUs, and a critical component of the broader $1 billion campaign.
The pooled endowment fund’s goal is to raise $370 million, which is about a $10 million stake in each school’s endowment, for the pooled endowment.
UNCF also said Scott’s gift brings them “significantly closer” to that goal, as each private member HBCU will receive a $5 million stake from this initiative. Lomax said Scott has raised the bar and now he’s sending a call to action to philanthropic organizations.
“I think it’s a challenge to them to do more and to give more,” Lomax told ABC News. “We [HBCUs] often say we do more with less. Now it’s time for us to do more with more,” he said. The announcement comes during HBCU Week 2025, which is honoring the legacy of HBCUs. The schools have been “pillars of excellence” since 1837, according to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.
HBCUs recently received over $400 million from the Department of Education through funding that was redirected to them for their commitment to educational outcomes, according to the department. Long underfunded by the federal government, the move increased HBCU federal funding for fiscal year 2025 to $1.3 billion.
UNCF applauded the federal government’s pledge to continue funding the more than 100 HBCUs across the country, including the 37 private HBCUs that it serves. Lodriguez V. Murray, UNCF’s senior vice president for public policy and government affairs, called the additional funding “nothing short of a godsend for HBCUs.”
UNCF President and CEO Michael L. Lomax believes the 2023 affirmative action ruling, which banned race-conscious admissions practices, placed a new “spotlight” on the value of HBCUs, but he remains “guardedly optimistic” about the financial contributions as of late.
“I thought that, you know, maybe the support will go down, when, in fact, what’s happening is that the support is going up,” Lomax said.