Source: The Guardian, Jean-Martin Bauer
Photo: Marcelo Hernandez/Getty Images

Working in food aid delivery, I have seen the benefits of embracing new technologies. But some problems need to be solved between humans

The Pouncer was designed to be the world’s first edible drone. The drone would fly one-way into dangerous, conflict-affected communities, where starving civilians would take it apart, and then cook and eat its components. The snub-nosed, delta-shaped aircraft with a wingspan of nine feet was designed to deliver a payload of 50kg of food – enough to feed 100 people for a day. Each one would cost $300.

Designed in 2014, the Pouncer was the brainchild of Nigel Gifford, a British entrepreneur and adventurer who resolved to use drones to fly aid to dangerous places. In a 2017 interview with the Financial Times, Gifford explained that he was considering using honeycomb, a structurally robust material, to build the Pouncer. He mused that the landing gear could be made of salami, which has excellent tensile strength (but might not be part of the diets of some of those the drone was meant to feed). The Pouncer’s plywood frame could be used for kindling. “Our food technologist guys [are] thinking of wrapping the electronics in bouillon cubes,” he added.

I first heard about the Pouncer at a gathering of humanitarian innovation experts in Italy. A drone expert told us the Pouncer could be the solution to the challenge posed by the need for food deliveries to war-torn northern Syria. Immediately, hands shot up. We knew the area was bristling with air defences that had already made airdrops of food all but impossible, and that would be sure to fire at the drones. How would flight authorisations be obtained? How would civilians tell the difference between a military drone that could kill, of which there were many in the skies of Syria, and its edible humanitarian counterpart? There were no obvious answers to these important questions, and the Pouncer left us all decidedly sceptical.

As of 2023, the Pouncer hadn’t taken off. It seems destined for the graveyard of well-intentioned but unrealised humanitarian innovation projects. Gifford’s invention was, to say the least, controversial. In fact, many in the broader community were openly hostile to the Pouncer. Kevin Watkins, then chief executive officer for Save the Children UK, said in an interview: “This is someone who’s come up with a crackpot idea based on the assumption that technology can solve all problems.” Drones are “good at killing people and blowing things up. They are absolutely irrelevant for resolving acute hunger.”

While the potential of new technology in humanitarian settings is undeniable, its role in highly complex and fragile situations is never simple and is always fraught – not so much for the promoters of tech taking on financial risk, but for the people on the receiving end of the innovation, whose very lives may be put at risk.

Humanitarians work with some of the world’s most vulnerable populations. As technological innovation changes the lives of people around the world, those of us working with these communities need to ask ourselves how we can make use of new tech while upholding our foundational principle to “do no harm”. How are we to separate the wheat, the innovations that actually help, from the chaff? And how can we design technology with the communities we aim to serve rather than pushing ready-made Silicon Valley tech that’s wildly out of touch?

Technology is changing how the world is fed, and how the fight against global hunger is being waged. In 2016, the German economist Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, wrote of a “fourth Industrial Revolution” that was set to transform society. (The previous three involved steam power, electricity and computing.) According to Schwab, the fourth Industrial Revolution will involve advances in biology and computer hardware and software and combine them with connectivity to the internet. There will be breakthroughs in robotics (including drones), artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and many other fields. The fourth Industrial Revolution, which is transforming the manufacturing and service economies, is already changing the way food is produced, processed and sold, and the way humanitarian aid is provided.

Technology is reconfiguring food supply chains across the world. In the past two decades, mobile phone towers have popped up all over the world, connecting billions of people. When mobile phone towers were built in Niger, the market for millet was transformed – wholesalers had often played on information asymmetries to sell millet for a high price. With mobile phones, anyone could call a friend or relative and learn what millet prices were in the next town rather than taking a wholesaler’s word for it.

Voice and text were just the beginning. Now that internet access is widespread, e-commerce platforms are allowing family farmers and food processors everywhere to sell their produce directly to consumers, bypassing layers of middlemen. This is the case with a host of new online services that allow people to order food from farmers to be delivered to their doorstep: these include Farm to Home in Pakistan, Twiga Foods in Kenya and Waruwa in Latin America. Twiga serves 10,000 customers a day. Its Nigerian counterpart, FarmCrowdy, collects food from 25,000 individual farmers to sell in Lagos.

By making digital payments instantaneous, mobile money – a currency that’s managed by mobile phone operators, not traditional banks – has enabled the rise of agricultural e-commerce and access to financial services for billions of people without bank accounts. Mobile money is now in widespread use in east Africa, where opening a mobile money account is as straightforward as buying a sim card, and paying for a cab or a meal is as simple as sending a text message. The mobile industry estimated that in 2023 more than 1.6 billion people worldwide had access to mobile money services. Mobile money is often available where access to traditional financial services is limited, and its use is rising sharply in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia.

Mobile money is a first step. Many other digitally enabled payment systems are still emerging. Blockchains are open, decentralised digital ledgers that combine the reach of the internet and the power of cryptography. They could – in theory, at least – democratise banking and trade. Blockchain technology promises to bring transparency to opaque food supply chains, whose workings tend to be obscured by backroom deals.

Believe it or not, for a moment at the turn of the millennium, it seemed the world was winning the battle against hunger. Famines had been virtually eliminated. As technology advanced, and as government programmes reached more people than ever, deaths from starvation fell sharply in the second half of the 20th century. Trends were so encouraging that in 2015, the world’s governments publicly committed to eliminating hunger by 2030. But instead of being eradicated, hunger has surged because of escalating global food prices, even as conflict and climate breakdown continue to decimate livelihoods. Experts estimated that in 2023, more than 250 million people would be facing acute hunger – double the number in 2020.

What was long regarded as a problem facing only the poorest nations is now pressing in on the US, where 17 million households – one in every eight – are food insecure. During the early months of the pandemic, even generous government aid was not enough to stop hunger from rising among minority groups in the US – a fact that reminds us that, all over the world, hunger is the outcome of deep-rooted social inequality.

There is plenty of food in the world to feed everyone. And yet even in a country like the US, endowed with abundant food supplies, people don’t have enough food to eat. This paradox can be explained only by US society’s deep structural inequalities and the shortcomings of its systems of production and distribution. In other parts of the world, conflict and corruption are added to the mix. But if, as has been said, hunger is a political condition, then it is, like all political conditions, something we can change.

Political systems can exacerbate or drive hunger by disenfranchising a society’s most vulnerable groups. And when a food crisis strikes, the population at large also suffers. Nobel economist Amartya Sen argued that the most extreme food shortages have almost always been the result of rulers’ neglect and indifference to the plight of their people. “No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy,” he wrote in 1999.

The current crisis should motivate us to reassess our food production and distribution systems, as well as our social safety net. To staunch hunger’s worldwide resurgence, we need to think big, and think differently, about the causes of hunger and famine and how to combat them more effectively. Those of us working in the humanitarian space can improve aid delivery by, for example, embracing emerging technologies – digital payments, robotics, advanced analytics and artificial intelligence – and other developments that promise to produce more food with less waste and enable food deliveries in high-risk settings. Technology, as we know, is a double-edged sword, and our use of these systems will require care, but their potential is undeniable.

As the fourth Industrial Revolution takes root in the world’s most hunger-prone and vulnerable communities, a generation is finding increasing benefits from life online. Many of the refugees or displaced people I have met use Facebook, WhatsApp and other apps to stay in touch with loved ones, make money, find the assistance they need and express their opinions. Savvy social media users, they also value the anonymity the internet offers. A Syrian refugee in Jordan’s sprawling Zaatari camp asked me with a wry smile: “Do you want my Facebook name, or my real name?” Access to wifi is such an essential service that humanitarian agencies now provide connectivity for affected populations. In fact, Syrian refugees arriving in Greece have been known to ask for the wifi hotspot before food or water.

These changes brought on by technology have meant that humanitarian agencies have had to adapt our operating models to keep up with the digital world. In the 2010s, the aid sector was facing what seemed to be insurmountable funding deficits, and donors pushed humanitarian organisations to unleash technology and innovate. Striving for efficiency in an era of tight budgets is common sense. But money alone is an insufficient metric when the goal is to protect and save lives. Before we jump headlong into the dream of a humanitarian techno-utopia, we must remember who it is we’re serving and what is at stake.

For all the enthusiasm of experts like Klaus Schwab, the means of bringing the fourth Industrial Revolution to the humanitarian frontline are anything but obvious. I saw this first-hand when the UN World Food Programme (WFP) tried to set up a digital payment system in central Africa, where refugees rely on humanitarian assistance to survive.

Bétou is a forlorn frontier town deep in the rainforest in the Republic of the Congo’s north, only 30 miles from the border of the troubled Central African Republic. The ramshackle settlement sprang up around an Italian-owned lumber mill on the Ubangi River; timber is sent down the river to Brazzaville by barge. The town’s main drag, a wide, dark, muddy track, leads straight to the mill. The population around Bétou is so sparse that people from all over west Africa come to work at the facility. On the riverfront, a few Mauritanian Arabs sell food out of shabby storefronts. A decrepit Catholic mission, its concrete walls stained dark green by the humidity, stands next to the river.

When I first visited Bétou, a few thousand refugees had been living in a camp that had been around for years. Many of them were Muslims who had fled from violence in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, in 2013, and had built shacks on an undeveloped patch of land. Since refugees were not allowed to acquire land where they could grow their own crops, the refugees relied on food from WFP. I recall that one in 10 refugee children were acutely malnourished, a rate that never seemed to drop. And it seemed that every time UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, planned to help the refugees go back home, another round of fighting would break out in Bangui, postponing yet again their longed-for return.

For more than three years, WFP had been providing the refugee community with food rations, but we had recently started mobile money transfers instead. We moved from providing bags of food to giving “digital food” – in the form of a mobile money transfer people could use to buy food. WFP’s introduction of cash transfers in this remote area was part of a global trend in the humanitarian community to provide more assistance through cash or vouchers. The hope was that people would have more choice in the items they buy with cash, and that local economies would benefit from the cash injection. Humanitarian cash transfers were virtually nonexistent in the early 2000s, but reached $5.6bn in 2019.

Bétou was one of many places going through a transition in assistance, from food to cash. The refugees were given a mobile phone chip. Once a month, they would receive a mobile money payment equivalent to $20 per person, which they could use to buy food at the Mauritanian shops in town. The digital payment system also brought a level of transparency that helped keep our donors on board, because it allowed them to see the money going directly to food purchases.

So what did the refugees think of the new system? One day, four leaders of the community came to the WFP meeting room to talk to my colleagues and me. The men, clean-shaven and in their best clothes, entered rather shyly and sat down. We exchanged prolonged greetings. When it was time to talk about substantive matters, they looked uneasy, shifting in their chairs, their eyes cast down. Abdou, a slim man of perhaps 40 in a threadbare yellow shirt, took the bull by the horns and explained what was on their minds.

“For years, you gave us bags of rice,” he began. “But a few months ago you began giving us mobile money to pay for our food.” There was an awkward pause. Abdou inhaled, and then continued: “Do you think we could go back to the old system, where we used to get the rice?”

This is what a humanitarian never wants to hear – that a new, creative programme isn’t working. I knew there had been issues with the first mobile money distributions, but I wasn’t expecting outright rejection from the people who were receiving them. After all, we had been cautious and had only introduced the technology after months of debate, studies and consultations.

Abdou explained that for his community, mobile money payments had been a headache. The chips we had provided were too easily blocked; after three failed attempts to enter a pin, the chip needed to be reset, leaving its owner unable to buy food. Sometimes chips were lost, or there were errors in the amount of credit transferred. When these inevitable problems arose, they took too long to resolve with the mobile phone company. To make matters worse, there had recently been a prolonged network outage, rendering all mobile money transactions temporarily impossible. “Could we not go back to the old way of doing things?” he repeated.

Abdou and the others had a point. But the old way of bringing food aid to their isolated community also had problems, and could be extraordinarily slow. First, food grown in the US midwest was barged down the Mississippi to a port on the Gulf. From there, a vessel loaded it up to cross the Atlantic, delivering the containers to Pointe Noire, Congo’s deepwater port. After clearing customs, the food was hoisted on to trucks for a 300-mile road journey to Brazzaville. At Brazzaville, the containers were lifted on to river barges, which a diesel-powered pusher boat slowly nudged up the Congo and Ubangi Rivers until they reached the camp in Bétou a week or two later. All going well, the entire process took at least five months. If we missed the high-water season on the Ubangi, we’d have to wait until the river rose again.

Of course, the food was a lifeline for the refugees, but the process was complex and time-consuming. And it wasn’t just in Congo: all over the world, food aid programmes have traditionally relied on transcontinental shipments of bulk commodities. This is because purchasing food in a donor country is good politics: it helps support farmers, a powerful voting bloc.

With mobile money, we could load cash on to the refugees’ phones within days of it arriving in our own account. We could instruct the mobile money operator to “push” credit to their numbers; as soon as the credit hit their phones, refugees could pick out and buy the foods they needed from local retailers. But something had gone wrong, and now we risked losing the trust of the community.

The person managing the mobile money transfers for WFP was a man named Nasser, an aid worker from Niger in west Africa. In Congo, people like Nasser were a group set apart because of their Muslim religion and their willingness to work as traders and farmers – occupations that the local elite considered low status. This prejudice didn’t rattle Nasser, who’d seen it all before. He had studied in Tunisia, where some local Arabs treated Black African students like him as curiosities. He had spent years working with Oxfam and Catholic Relief Services in Africa’s toughest humanitarian crises, including Mali, Niger and Central African Republic. He joined WFP soon after my discussion with the leaders of the Central African community in Bétou about the mobile money project. He was the person who could get the project back on track.

Fuelled by gallons of lukewarm drip coffee, Nasser spent many days and sleepless nights at work, figuring out how the tech could work better for the refugees. He’d be on the phone for hours with our partners to check that every detail was in order before the mobile money was credited to accounts. He routinely called me on weekends or late at night to ask me to approve payments, so that people would not wait a minute more than necessary for their food. Nasser was known to write furious emails upbraiding his colleagues for not working fast enough and holding up the distributions: you’re sitting in the comfort of your air-conditioned office while the beneficiaries are waiting in the sun. Nasser could be pushy, but always for the right reasons.

We made important modifications to our system: if people had technical issues with sim cards, they could call a hotline. WFP required the mobile company to deploy a team to Bétou so the host of problems that occurred on distribution days could be resolved on the spot. And the refugees themselves became more familiar with the technology. Though it took more time and effort than we had anticipated, the mobile money transfers began to work, and the refugees from the CAR in Bétou changed their minds about the programme. We’d fallen prey to the comforting illusion that shiny new technology would solve everything. But technology does not work on its own; it needs attendants, people like Abdou, Nasser and all those who worked to get things right for the refugees in Bétou.

Mobile money transfers proved to be an effective solution to a humanitarian supply-chain issue. Still, there was a larger problem left unsolved: the community was still unable to feed itself without aid. Working with UNHCR, WFP advocated with authorities to allow the Central Africans to obtain the land they needed to farm. The Congolese had given the refugees protected status, but they still refused to let them acquire farmland.

Ultimately, an agreement was reached that allowed refugees to lease farmland from locals for three to five years – enough time to give them some security, and to plant food crops for themselves and sell the surplus. Soon enough, the Central Africans began growing cabbage and tomatoes, which they sold at Bétou’s riverside market. Technology had streamlined one aspect of food delivery, but the larger issue of access to land, and a sustainable future for the refugees, could only be resolved through negotiations between human beings.

This is an edited extract from The New Breadline: Hunger and Hope in the 21st Century, published by Profile Books on 1 August and available at guardianbookshop.com.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/jul/18/food-water-wifi-is-this-the-future-of-humanitarian-aid

Source: Curiosity, Leon Zucchini
Photo: Courtesy of Benevity

Do you want to change the world but don’t know how? Are you a business leader who’s heard of corporate social responsibility (CSR) but are unsure where to start? Look no further.

Enter social impact platforms. They help companies and employees collaborate to support charity and CSR initiatives. Their main focus is on giving companies a way to organize and support social engagement among their employees.

Social impact platforms

In a recent study, OKTA put together a list of ten amazing social impact platforms, ranked by users. That’s a lot of options for you to get started. In addition, these platforms grew an incredible rate of 29% last year, so it’s clearly an area to watch.

For those who haven’t heard of them (I hadn’t), in this post we’ll introduce each one briefly. Let’s jump right in!

1. Benevity

Benevity is a platform for managing charitable donations and grants. It was ranked top by users in the 2022 OKTA report and was also a finalist in the 2020’s Fast Company’s World’s Changing Ideas Awards.

Benevity helps companies organise corporate giving, volunteering, and grants. It also offers quick ways of providing disaster-relief during crises. It includes multiple payment options, and donations show up in real-time.

Part of Benevity’s mission is to improve the way global charities access corporate giving programs. It aims to reduce administration costs by aggregating donations, payments process, and donor acknowledgments across individuals, causes, and companies.

2. YourCause

Next on the list is YourCause. Founded in 2008 by Matt Combs, YourCause has become a leader in the corporate social responsibility (CRS) space.

YourCause provides CRSconnect, an online platform for organizations to manage one or more philanthropic programs including volunteering grants and matching gift programs.

Companies use YourCause to:

Set up and manage corporate and employee giving
Establish matching gift guidelines
Process payments to non-profits
Process donations from employees
Verify that non-profits are eligible for corporate giving programs
Major socially-responsible companies have partnered with YourCause to manage their volunteering, corporate giving, and grant programs.

3. Bright Funds

Bright Funds is another trusted leader in the CSR space and ranks third by users in the OKTA report.

Bright Funds provides a platform that lets companies of all sizes support their employees in giving and volunteering.

Headquartered in California, Bright Funds has partnered with world-leading companies to bring impact-focused employee and corporate giving globally.

The company boasts a 74% increase in user base this year compared to 2020, so their approach is evidently resonating.

4. Good2Give

Next on the list is Good2Give, a community investment and CSR platform that grew 129% YOY.

Good2Give provides giving-solutions that make it easy for corporations, charities, and donors to connect. Their mission is to inspire companies and their employees to support the communities they care about.

In 2018, for instance, Good2Give distributed $14 million to more than 1,600 charities through grant programs and workplace giving. This Australian NGO has facilitated more than $275 million of giving to more than 8,000 recipients.

As a not-for-profit organization, Good2Give focuses on strengthening the charitable sector with low-cost funding models supported by technology.

Intermission: Curiosity

If you’re interested in new technology, you might want to check out Curiosity.

Curiosity is a productivity app that gives you one place to search all your files and apps. That lets you save time and get more done.

Curiosity connects with the tools you already use, including your local folders and cloud apps like Google Drive or Slack. You can use the shortcut-powered command bar to access things quickly and the file browser for deeper searches with advanced filters.

Unlike other search apps, Curiosity keeps your data safe on your computer and never sends it to the cloud.

Curiosity is available for free on Windows and Mac. You can also get a free two-week trial of Curiosity Pro (unlimited sources / search file contents).

Give your productivity a boost by downloading Curiosity at https://curiosity.ai/download

5. Catalyser

Catalyser is another CSR and philanthropic platform that helps employees make a positive impact. Its vision is to see every employee empowered by technology to impact the world positively from their workplace.

Catalyser provides a customizable platform that lets companies give their employees a centralized platform for all their fundraising, skilled volunteering, matched payroll giving, employee rewards, and more.

According to the OKTA report, Catalyser registered the strongest growth with a staggering 189% increase in assigned users yearly.

6. Millie

As corporate giving becomes increasingly popular, many organizations are looking for CSR platforms that are easy to use and fun. That’s where Millie comes in: It’s designed to make charitable giving fun, impactful, and easily accessible.

When you launch the app, you see the profiles of three organizations that need funding. Each includes a brief description of how the funds will be used and you can find out more, or swipe to donate. There’s a fresh batch of organizations every week, and the app has a social badge that allows you to see when others are giving in real-time.

Millie also recently launched a gamification tool that allows companies to build their own “giving brackets” where employees play to give.

7. Kindlink

The next one on the list is Kindlink (who knew there were so many!?). Their special twist is their focus on showing donors the impact of their contributions. That lets charities and volunteer groups manage donations better and become more transparent.

As the name implies, Kindlink creates a link between those who want to help and those in need of help in a social media-like environment. The platform aims to build an equal and connected world where people (and companies) can help each other in a friendly and transparent manner.

Kindred is an all-in-one platform. It ensures that employees can participate in fundraising activities while gaining access to volunteering opportunities where they can hone their skills. For donors, the platform ensures they have a central place to access records about donations, volunteers, and beneficiaries.

8. Visit.Org

Visit.org is a CSR with a slightly different forcus. Founded in 2015, it’s a platform that lets employees participate in travel experiences offered by non-profit organizations.

The platform lets travelers add new experiences to their itinerary, and channels all revenue to local communities through the host company. Visit.org lets organizations to build a strong corporate culture with ongoing team-building experiences that also give back… the best of both worlds!

Honorable Mentions

The companies above provide CSR platforms that focus on helping companies provide ways for their employees to give back.

The last two companies in the OKTA report have a different focus, but they’re no less awesome so we’ve included them here as honorable mentions.

VolunteerMatch

Just a few years ago, your best bet for finding volunteer work was to check your church’s newsletter or scan a community center bulletin board.

Not any more. Thanks to VolunteerMatch, finding volunteering work is as simple as browsing your Facebook timeline. The platform is the web’s largest volunteer-engagement network. More than 70,000 non-profits list their projects on this platform, creating endless volunteering opportunities.

Those seeking charity work can search for opportunities by location, keyword, or interest area. Launched in 1998 by four MBA graduates who wanted to create volunteering opportunities for all, the San-Francisco-based platform has created more than 4 million volunteering opportunities in the past ten years.

Big-name non-profits like the American Red Cross, Peace Corps, Girl Scouts of the US, and more list their volunteer opportunities on this platform. The company also helps corporations like Google, Exelon, and Dell match their employees to community projects.

CareerVillage

CareerVillage has a different focus yet again: It’s a US-focused platform that helps high-school students get personalized career advice from real-life professionals.

The company behind CareerVillage works with educators in low-income communities to help students with questions about their future. Typically, students ask career-related questions and educators provide advice and inspiration to help them make better career decisions.

Based out of Boston, Massachusetts, CareerVillage aims to help students achieve professional success by bridging the career information and advice gap. This Q&A platform is focused on scaling to serve millions of children across the US.

I wish they’d been around when I was wondering what to do after school!

Ready to Change the World?

Technology is dramatically changing the way we live and do things… including giving back.

All of the platforms above provide exciting ways for companies and employees to collaborate to make the world a better place. Which one of them is the best fit for your organization depends on what you want to achieve, so do check them out!

https://blog.curiosity.ai/ten-platforms-helping-companies-and-employees-change-the-world

Source: The New York Times, Nicholas Kulish and Maria Cramer
Photo: MacKenzie Scott at the Vanity Fair Oscar party in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 2018. (Getty Images)

The philanthropist announced new donations to Ukraine aid and Planned Parenthood, and said she would soon debut a database of all her giving.

Since first promising in 2019 to give away her entire fortune, the billionaire MacKenzie Scott has handed out over $12 billion to nonprofits, per a tally of her publicly announced gifts since 2020. That enormous sum has vaulted her to the top ranks of philanthropists worldwide.

In her latest essay on the website Medium on Wednesday, Ms. Scott described an additional $3.9 billion in gifts to 465 nonprofits in just the last nine months, including funds dedicated to areas she had given to in the past, such as climate and education, as well as newly pressing needs, like Ukraine relief efforts.

“Our team’s focus over these last nine months has included some new areas, but as always our aim has been to support the needs of underrepresented people from groups of all kinds,” Ms. Scott wrote.

On Wednesday, Habitat for Humanity International announced that Ms. Scott had donated $436 million to the group and 84 affiliates. She also gave $275 million to Planned Parenthood’s national office and 21 affiliates around the country, which the group called the largest gift from a single donor in its history.

“At such a critical time for reproductive health and rights, this investment and expression of confidence in Planned Parenthood will help us to be as strong as we can be to meet the moment,” said Melaney Linton, president of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast and chairwoman of the affiliate council, in a statement on Wednesday.

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All told, 1,257 organizations have received donations from Ms. Scott since 2020. Even the amounts she has given to smaller groups are often large by their standards, in many cases equal to an organization’s entire annual budget.

That was the case when Ms. Scott donated $15 million last week to Madre, an aid and human rights organization in New York that supports women’s groups around the world, according to the organization. “This is the single biggest grant we’ve ever received from a donor by orders of magnitude,” said Yifat Susskind, executive director of Madre.

Ms. Susskind celebrated what the gift can do for the people the organization serves — but also wanted to make sure smaller donors know they are valued, too. “We’re doing what we can to message to folks that it’s everybody’s faith in our work that brought us to the point where we can get on the radar of someone like MacKenzie Scott,” she said.

The announcement on Wednesday was a course reversal for Ms. Scott, who has grappled with the conflicting demands of her desire for privacy and her goal of publicizing the work done by the groups she is helping. Unlike foundations, which must file detailed, publicly available tax returns, Ms. Scott has given through the charitable vehicles known as donor-advised funds, which do not require her to file separate disclosures.

Even after her many gifts, Forbes magazine still estimates Ms. Scott’s net worth at $49.4 billion.

In December she released a giving letter called “No Dollar Signs This Time,” in which she declined to name the organizations she had given to or the total amount of money she had handed out.

Two days later, facing criticism that she had grown less rather than more transparent, she wrote an addendum in which she said she was working on a website that would include a “searchable database of gifts.”

Ms. Scott seemed to pre-empt any potential criticism that the website had not gone up yet, writing that it “will go live only after it reflects the preferences of every one of these nonprofit teams about how details of their gifts are shared.”

While Ms. Scott has written extensively about her goal of promoting equity and in particular her efforts to prioritize groups led by women, people of color and L.G.B.T.Q. people, she hasn’t shied away from more general direct aid in times of need, as when she gave to food banks and Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. chapters during the first, acute phase of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

This time around she listed seven groups working directly on Ukraine, after the Russian invasion there, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, HIAS and CARE.

“Helping any of us,” she concluded, “can help us all.”

Nicholas Kulish is an enterprise correspondent for the Times writing about philanthropy, wealth and nonprofits. Before that, he served as the Berlin bureau chief and an East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi. He joined The Times as a member of the Editorial Board in 2005. @nkulish

Maria Cramer is a breaking news reporter on the Express Desk. @NYTimesCramer

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/business/mackenzie-scott-philanthropy

Source: Wired, Carol Milberger
Photo: Elena Lacey

With flashlights, gift bags, and an app, I spent a day learning about our unhoused neighbors and logging what they really need.

BLEARY-EYED DUE TO the 5:30 am check-in, I zigzagged through bulky-jacketed volunteers gathered in the library basement toward my team. We were preparing to interview homeless individuals for the 24-hour Point in Time (PIT) count held across the US in late January.

Everyone on my team was drawn to our town’s first PIT count for different reasons. As a high school principal, John saw families and teens struggle with homelessness. While volunteering at a free health clinic, Monica, a retired nurse, met people fearful of losing their homes. And I knew how quickly life could change after losing our home to an explosion of toxic mold 19 years ago.

John, Monica, and I decided to rotate through the interviewer, notetaker, and lookout roles on the team. We grabbed backpacks of gifts for interviewees, I pulled on a reflective vest that I borrowed from the local utility company, then checked to make sure I had my cell phone, reading glasses, gloves, a tiny flashlight, and the password for Counting Us handy.

Several mobile apps are used to collect PIT count data across the country, but Counting Us is the first and most widely used. The app was developed by Simtech Solutions in 2012. Matt Simmonds, president of Simtech Solutions, says “in order to fix a problem, you have to understand it. That is where we come in. There is a person behind each number.” Built specifically for the US Housing and Uban Development PIT count, Counting Us is a GPS-enabled surveying tool used to gather PIT count data in 50 regions across the US.

Ana Rausch, vice president of program operations with The Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County, says Counting Us helps the organization “do more, cover more people, and provide more accurate numbers in a user-friendly fashion.” She says her team didn’t have time to interview everyone under a paper-based system, so they had to count at night and interview a sample of homeless individuals during the day. Decision tree question sets based on interviewee demographics (youth versus adults, individual versus household) were cumbersome and time-consuming, relying on paper and clipboards. The app saves time, which allows people in cities like Houston to interview each homeless person they count, instead of sampling selected individuals. Similarly, the app instantly uploads clean, useful data, which eliminates weeks spent deciphering interviewer notes and keying in paper responses. The fact that the app is easy to use also attracts more volunteers for the PIT count. Every interview is tied to a specific geographic location, which helps advocacy organizations create action plans or petition for specific resources.

Kyra Henderson, director of systems change for the Texas Homeless Network, says the PIT interview “may be the most positive interaction for the day” for many interviewees. Since “the majority of [people in] the US are one to two paychecks away from being homeless,” she says, PIT interviews are both helpful and important.

Simmonds says Counting Us provides data about common themes of homelessness for youth, veterans, and other groups so appropriate resources can be utilized. Data collected via the app allows communities to “help as many people as possible with the resources available,” he explains. Simmonds says homelessness sends a ripple effect through the community, impacting jails, emergency rooms, tourism, and more, so reducing it also has far-reaching impacts. Henderson agrees and says those interested in reducing homelessness should consider participating in a local PIT count themselves.

Our interviews began within minutes of reaching our assigned territory, a Walmart parking lot. The interviewees we spoke to all patiently waited as we read each question and pecked at the cellphone screen. Only one camper declined the interview and gift bag. Even so, he was counted: We entered his demographics into the app’s Observation section, used for interviewees who are sleeping, unwilling to participate, or unapproachable.

It was nearly daylight when we noticed a rusty Ford van idling at the lot’s edge. John shook hands with Peter, an elderly balding man in a white stained T-shirt sitting in the driver’s seat. Peter wouldn’t turn off his van because he was afraid it might not start again.

After several questions, Monica softly inquired, “So it started when your wife died 10 years ago?”

Peter pulled age-spotted hands over his eyes and silently wept, then exhaled slowly, “Everything fell apart when I lost her.”

Monica continued with the scripted questions after Peter wished aloud for gas money to return to Florida. Our training emphasized that volunteers cannot give, or carry, money, so we couldn’t oblige. At the end of the interview, Peter thanked us for the gift bag.

As I drove home after the interviews, I felt guilty for wanting a hot shower. Sadness overtook me as I pictured Peter’s hands. During our two-year mold ordeal, I had wondered if our living situation would ever improve—then watched it deteriorate despite our best efforts. Like Peter, I used to sit in my car and cry.

I knew there were good reasons PIT volunteers shouldn’t carry or offer money, but I’d signed out at that point. I grabbed some cash and a few snacks and went back out. Peter’s van was still there, still running, when I handed the gifts through the window and said, “We all need hope—and hope comes in many forms.”

Peter’s expression rotated between smiles and tears, sometimes both. I leaned against the van wheel well and cried softly in tandem with him. Then I wished him the best, and he blessed me as I walked away.

A wave of gratitude washed over me when I got home, walked into our hallway, and inhaled clean air. We were ill, frightened, and overwhelmed when forced from our mold-contaminated home 19 years ago. But a librarian’s gift of a dictionary for my son’s homework assignments provided me with hope. Hope that our house would be remediated and we’d move back home. Hope that people cared.

Innovative housing programs are often the outgrowth of community members asking “why doesn’t someone do something?” and then doing it themselves, using HUD grants based on need and PIT count data. HUD allocates money for programs supporting its mission “to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all.” HUD grantees include state and local governments, nonprofit and for-profit organizations, public housing authorities, tribal entities, and communities interested in ending homelessness. Grantees must demonstrate the extent of homelessness in their community using data provided by the PIT count.

Matt Simmonds repurposed the Counting Us app in 2017 to help Houston rehouse 2,000 Hurricane Harvey evacuees living in the convention center. After the hurricane, data couldn’t be collected by computer due to widespread power outages, so a mobile app, which could collect data in the field—even offline—was an ideal option. Then a spreadsheet of needs (medication, diapers, clothing, etc.) for all the evacuees was created and populated in two days—much faster than would be possible using a purely paper-based or computer-based tool.

Show the Way, Simtech’s latest app, provides mobile case management for homeless individuals. The app enables outreach workers to locate needed resources, request assistance, and track interactions, which provides assistance (identification, health care, other needs) and builds on prior steps. Show the Way helps transition people out of homeless encampments and is used by first responders in some communities.

HUD canceled the 2021 PIT count due to Covid-19 concerns. Due to surges in cases, some communities requested permission from HUD to postpone their 2022 count to late February, while other communities canceled their counts. Covid-19, cancellations, and late changes make it difficult to attract and train volunteers. Readers interested in learning about volunteer opportunities can search the HUD grantee by name, state, or program type or Google their county and “Continuum of Care (CoC).”

I can’t solve homelessness, but I do know hope is critically important and comes in many forms. A kind smile, a listening ear—even a dictionary—can make a huge difference. Caring enough to show it can change someone’s life.

https://www.wired.com/story/app-fight-homelessness-community-service

Source: Business Insider,
Photo: “Climate action cannot take place without action on food systems,” Sophie Healy-Thow, global youth campaign coordinator for Act4Food Act4Change, said. (Jamie Sue Photography/Shutterstock)

The global food system directly affects the climate, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Act4Food Act4Change’s event at COP26 on November 7 will discuss its impact.

Young people have the power and more at stake and must take action, experts say.

The global food system plays a major role in the ongoing health, climate, biodiversity, and human-rights crises. It contributes to more than a third of greenhouse gas emissions, and about a third of all food produced is wasted while many people worldwide can’t afford healthy, nutritious meals.

“The one thing we all have in common, wherever we live and however rich we are, is food,” Sophie Healy-Thow, global youth campaign coordinator for Act4Food Act4Change, a youth-led initiative striving to positively change the global food system, told Insider. “We all play integral parts in the food system as consumers, and if we want a future where people and the planet are healthy, we need to start caring more about creating more sustainable food systems.”

Youth leaders from around the world will come together to discuss the valuable role they play in transforming global food systems at the UN Climate Change Conference UK 2021 (COP26) in Glasgow on November 7. The event, titled “Act4Food Act4Change: Calling all young people to be agents of change in food systems transformation,” will be hosted by Dara Karakolis, an Act4Food Act4Change youth leader from Canada and global youth lead at The Food Foundation, which is also partnering on the session along with WWF.

“We want to ensure food and nutrition are firmly on the agenda for all future COP and climate events,” Healy-Thow said. “Food systems are a huge contributor to climate change, as well as being central to societal well-being and successful economic development.”

Some of the issues the group hopes to highlight include how the food system is structured so that it often costs more to cook healthy foods than buy unhealthy fast foods and that local, indigenous knowledge creates a more inclusive and sustainable system. Single-use plastics, the advertising of junk foods to children, and how small-scale food producers are affected by local governments, taxes, and climate change are other issues on the agenda.

Healy-Thow encourages everyone to sign the Act4Food pledge to show their commitment to food system transformation. Nearly 105,000 pledges have been made so far. “It’s a pledge to demand urgent large-scale action from ourselves and others, especially from decision-makers in government and business,” she said.

People ages 15 to 24 accounted for 16% of the global population in 2019, according to the UN. With such a large number, Healy-Thow said young people have the power to change the food system — and, they have more at stake as they’ll be around longer than today’s older demographics.

Individuals aged 30 and under are urged to vote for their top Actions4Change, including banning single-use plastic packaging, ensuring everyone can afford healthy and nutritious meals, and protecting food production from political disruption and the impact of climate change. The actions are personal commitments, Healy-Thow said, but also demands for those in power to take action.

Young people can also get involved by signing up to become an Act4Food Act4Change Youth Advocate.

“We’ve seen the power young people are having in the climate-action movement,” she said. “We need to have that same energy for food systems. We need change and we can be the people to create that change before it’s too late. Climate action cannot take place without action on food systems and food systems cannot change without climate action.”

https://www.businessinsider.com/cop26-event-young-fix-global-food-system-climate-change

Source: Business Insider, Kate Duffy, Reuters
Photo: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said it’s committing $120 million to help roll out a COVID-19 drug in poor nations. (Frederic Stevens/Getty)

The Gates Foundation is putting $120 million towards helping poorer nations get Merck’s COVID-19 pill.

Merck applied for FDA authorization for its COVID-19 antiviral drug but it hasn’t been approved yet.

The money will go towards developing and making generic versions of the pill if it’s approved.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said on Tuesday that it would commit up to $120 million to help low-income countries get a COVID-19 drug developed by Merck.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hasn’t yet authorized Merck’s COVID-19 pill but an advisory panel are scheduled meet to discuss the request on November 30.

The money from the Gates Foundation will go towards supporting the development and manufacturing of generic versions of the pill if it wins regulatory approval, according to the foundation’s statement.

“Low-income countries have had to wait for everything from personal protective equipment to vaccines. That is unacceptable,” co-chair Melinda French Gates said in the statement.

“Today’s commitment will ensure that more people in more countries get access to the promising drug molnupiravir, but it’s not the end of the story — we need other donors, including foundations and governments, to act,” she said.

The move comes as low- and middle-income countries struggle to secure vaccines and treatments needed to help recover from COVID-19, especially in Africa, where only around 5% of the population is immunized.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that an effort led by the World Health Organization to win fair access for poorer countries aims to get antiviral drugs for as little as $10 per course for people with mild symptoms.

Merck’s COVID-19 pill is likely to be one of them.

Early trial results suggested the pill reduces hospitalization by 50%, the company said. If approved, it will be the first oral antiviral in use for COVID-19.

The Gates Foundation, which launched in 2000, has poured around $1.9 billion into the fight against the pandemic since last year.

More than 241.58 million people have been reported infected with the coronavirus worldwide, and more than 5.1 million have died, a Reuters tally shows.

Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2021. Follow Reuters on Twitter.

https://www.businessinsider.com/merck-covid-pull-molnupiravir-gates-foundation-poor-countries

Source: Business Insider, Erica Sweeney
Photo: Dan Noyes (Courtesy of Dan Noyes)

Dan Noyes is co-CEO of Tech Goes Home, a nonprofit that addresses digital inequities in Boston.

He says he has a personal dedication to digital equity from his time working with middle schoolers.

Since 2010, about 40,000 low-income residents have benefitted from TGH’s programs.

This article is part of a series focused on American cities building a better tomorrow called “Advancing Cities.”

Dan Noyes, 45, has been working to close the digital divide in Boston for two decades.

His digital-equity work began when he was the director of technology for a Boston Public Schools high school. In 2006, he joined the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School in Dorchester to lead their one-on-one laptop initiative, where each student received a computer. But initially, the kids weren’t allowed to take the devices home.

“What that meant was that this idea of trying to create lifelong learning, both in school and at home, was incredibly difficult because you’ve got this great tool in school, and then you go home and you didn’t have anything,” Noyes told Insider. “So we decided we needed to fix that.”

The school invited parents and caregivers in for digital-literacy training on what their kids were learning, then the families received a computer. Noyes said the program then expanded to other schools.

In 2010, Noyes, who now lives just west of the city in Auburn, joined Tech Goes Home (TGH), a nonprofit founded in 2000 that addresses digital inequities across Boston through adult and family education, as co-CEO. He said his dedication to digital equity is personal, stemming from his middle-school students.

“I knew those kids and I knew those families,” he said. “It was just so depressing to think that you had all these amazing students who had such incredible potential but one of the only things holding them back was resources at home. It’s so unfair.”

Surging oil prices and global energy shortages are spotlighting the challenges of switching to greener sources, UBS says. Here are 2 ways to play the trend — and why oil may have 33% more upside after a remarkable rally.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the digital divide, as it forced students to learn from home and adults to work remotely. Noyes appreciates that the problem has received more awareness but said Boston (and the country as a whole) still has a lot of work to do.

Digital-literacy education should be tailored to individual needs

Quantifying the problem of digital inequity in Boston is difficult. According to the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, about 15% of Boston households don’t have internet access — but, the number is most likely much higher, Noyes said, since the data is derived from surveys, which often leave out marginalized communities.

The biggest issue, besides many people not having access to tech or internet, is that many others often lack the skills to use technology.

Tech Goes Home partners with community programs, like libraries, schools, churches, and homeless shelters that serve hard-to-reach communities, and trains their staff to host 15-hour digital-literacy courses.

Each course is tailored to the needs and interests of the attendees. For example, classes for people who are unemployed focus on finding a job, and those for older people focus on health or communication tools. Everyone who takes a class receives a free laptop and a year of free internet service.

The program targets low-income residents. Noyes said about 90% of the people TGH serves are considered “very low income” by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, 85% are people of color, 50% are English-language learners, and about 60% are women. Since 2010, about 40,000 people have gone through TGH’s programs.

Taking digital-literacy learning online amid the pandemic

TGH’s programming had always been in person — until the pandemic hit. By summer 2020, Noyes said his team had created a distance-learning program, but setting up an online program for people who lack digital-literacy skills and internet connectivity was a challenge.

Pre-pandemic, attendees received their computers after completing the course. In shifting to online classes, Noyes said they decided to send a laptop and a WiFi hotspot to people’s homes so they could get online. At first, he said they worried people might just take the computer and not complete the course, but that didn’t happen.

“Our graduation rate was 92%, pre-pandemic,” he said. “During the pandemic, our graduation rate was 92%. People stayed involved.”

The courses were held via Zoom, and while many people experienced Zoom fatigue over the past 18 months, Noyes said for the people TGH serves, it was a lifeline. Many had lost their jobs during the pandemic and weren’t going to the places they normally would.

“This was an opportunity for them to see members of their community that they wouldn’t be able to see,” he said, adding that he enjoyed popping into the classes. “People were so happy to see each other. It was something special beyond learning.”

Keeping the momentum up in Boston

This month, Mayor Kim Janey and the city’s Department of Innovation and Technology commissioned a study on the availability, cost, and equity of broadband in Boston to identify service opportunities and disparities by neighborhood.

“We’re showing that everything we do is impacted by digital equity,” Noyes said. “If you go to find a place to live, you go online. To find a job, you go online. You want to get vaccinated, you go online. If you don’t have access to that world, think of how many opportunities you’re denied.”

Internet access for low-income communities is just the first step in closing the digital divide, Noyes said, and he believes the city will eventually be able to offer that. Now more organizations are taking a look at the problem of digital equity. Noyes just hopes the momentum continues.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-boston-nonprofit-helps-low-income-internet-access-digital-divide

Source: Architectual Digest, Dan Avery
Photo: Afghan refugees arrive at the Torrejón de Ardoz air base in Madrid, Spain. (Getty Images/Europa Press News)

As the situation in Afghanistan deteriorates, Airbnb has announced it will arrange free accommodations worldwide

In a tweet late Monday evening, Airbnb CEO and cofounder Brian Chesky called the displacement and resettlement of Afghans “one of the biggest humanitarian crises of our time.” The executive went even further, saying his company had an obligation to “step up.” As such, refugees will now be housed in properties listed on Airbnb, with funding coming from donations by Chesky and Airbnb, as well as contributions to the Airbnb.org Refugee Fund, a $25 million program launched in June to support displaced people and asylum seekers.

It’s not clear how much Airbnb will spend on the program or how long it would cover the stays, but the company said it would “evolve the initiative and its support as necessary,” according to CNBC. Chesky encouraged Twitter users interested in hosting a refugee family to get in contact with him, saying, “I’ll connect you with the right people here to make it happen.” He added he hoped other business leaders would be inspired to step forward as well.

“As tens of thousands of Afghan refugees resettle around the world, where they stay will be the first chapter in their new lives,” Chesky said later in a release. “For these 20,000 refugees, my hope is that the Airbnb community will provide them with not only a safe place to rest and start over, but also a warm welcome home.”

To date, Airbnb.org, the room-share apps’ philanthropic arm, has arranged for stays for more than 75,000 people displaced by natural disasters—including Hurricane Sandy, earthquakes in Mexico, and the California wildfires—as well as COVID-19 frontline workers and others in emergency situations. Over the weekend, Airbnb.org already worked with partners on the ground to place 165 refugees in safe housing shortly after they arrived in the U.S..

David Miliband, CEO of the International Rescue Committee, praised the company for “offering their support and infrastructure to meet this moment, providing safe and welcoming places for individuals and families as they arrive in the United States and begin rebuilding their lives.” The humanitarian gesture comes as Airbnb slowly recovers from a devastating financial slump: At the start of the pandemic the company laid off a quarter of its staff and took out billions in loans.

Even after refocusing its offerings more on isolated getaways, lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing saw listings drop more than 40 percent in some U.S. markets between May 2020 and March 2021, according to a report by Lending Tree.

Now the 13-year-old company seems to be on the rise once more: Listings are increasing and, after Airbnb went public in December 2020, it quickly became valued at $100 billion—more than the worth of Hilton, Marriott, and Intercontinental combined, NPR reported.

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/airbnb-opens-homes-afghan-refugees

Source: Smithsonian Magazine, Beth Py-Lieberman
Photo: Robert McCurdy, Untitled, Jeffrey P. Bezos, 2019, oil on canvas (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; acquired through generosity of Tom Alberg; Purvi Patel Albers and Bill Albers; John Seely Brown; Anonymous donors; John and Ann Doerr; Jamie Gorelick; Judy McGrath; Jon Rubinstein and Karen Richardson)

The Amazon founder’s gift—the largest since the Institution was created in 1846—will support the Air and Space Museum renovation and a new education center

In 1826, the British scientist James Smithson wrote an unusual will designating the United States as the recipient of a considerable fortune: a gift of $508,318 “to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” That bequest, worth about $14 million in today’s dollars, has since grown into a massive educational complex home to more than two dozen museums and galleries, multiple research centers, and libraries and archives staffed by the thousands.

Today, the Smithsonian Institution announced it had received a gift of $200 million—the largest since Smithson’s original bequest.

The donor is Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chair of Amazon. Bezos, who revolutionized the retail industry, was also the 2016 recipient of Smithsonian magazine’s prestigious American Ingenuity Award for his innovative and expansive spaceflight program Blue Origin, which is dedicated to lowering the cost of spaceflight with its reusable launch vehicles. In six days, the company will launch its 16th New Shepard flight to space, carrying a crew—including Bezos—on board for the first time.

Bezos’ donation will support the ongoing, massive renovation of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, with $70 million offered to enable a technological transformation of the museum’s galleries and public spaces. The remaining $130 million will be used to inaugurate an education center called the Bezos Learning Center.

“The Smithsonian plays a vital role in igniting the imaginations of our future builders and dreamers,” says Bezos in a statement. “Every child is born with great potential, and it’s inspiration that unlocks that potential. My love affair with science, invention and space did that for me, and I hope this gift does that for others.”

“Since its inception, the Smithsonian has benefited from both federal funding and the generosity of visionary donors,” says Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch in the statement. “Almost 175 years ago, Mr. Smithson’s inaugural gift laid the groundwork for this innovative approach, bringing together private philanthropy and public funding. Today, as we emerge from a pivotal moment in history, Jeff’s donation builds on that original tradition and will help us reimagine and transform the Smithsonian.”

Bunch adds, “This historic gift will help the Smithsonian achieve its goal of reaching every classroom in America by creating a world-class learning center with access and inspiration at its heart. We are grateful to Jeff for his generosity and for his passion and commitment to education, innovation and technology. This donation will fuel our nation’s future leaders and innovators.”

The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is located at Sixth and Independence Avenue, SW in Washington, D.C.
The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is located at Sixth and Independence Avenue, SW in Washington, D.C. (Eric Long, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)
The education center will be housed on the current grounds of the Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on the east side facing the U.S. Capitol. It will replace the glass-enclosed cafeteria building.

“At this moment, the first human to set foot on Mars might be in elementary school,” says Ellen Stofan, the Smithsonian’s under secretary for science and research and former director of the National Air and Space Museum, in the release. “As the largest and most visited aerospace museum in the world, the museum wants to spark that passion and enrich the imagination and ingenuity of every student who visits the Smithsonian. For many years, Jeff has been an avid supporter of the Smithsonian and the museum’s mission to ‘ignite tomorrow.’ With this gift, we will be able to continue our transformation and further expand the National Air and Space Museum’s ability to reveal the possibilities of space exploration.”

Bezos—who is a “huge space enthusiast, as we all know,” according to Smithsonian spokesperson Linda St. Thomas—previously gifted a founding donation of $1 million dollars to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The new education center will fund the kinds of inspirational programs and activities that engage young minds in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics). Bezos’ donation will also be used to foster critical skills and develop tools needed by teachers hoping to better utilize the Smithsonian’s collections. The center will network across all Smithsonian museums to promote “inquiry-based learning,” a philosophy that combines multiple learning strategies, including using objects to develop evidence-based claims, building reasoning skills, better engaging with layers of complexity and providing opportunities for interpretation.

“Jeff’s early curiosity about space exploration helped inspire him to think big and act boldly, and as a result he has played a defining role in the expansion of the internet,” says Smithsonian Board of Regents Chair Steve Case, chairman and CEO of Revolution and founder of America Online, in the statement. “We’re delighted that Jeff is making this commitment to help us extend the Smithsonian’s reach and impact, as we seek to inspire the next generation of scientists, astronauts, engineers, educators and entrepreneurs.”

In 2019, Bezos was the recipient of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery’s “Portrait of a Nation Prize.” The gallery holds in its collections a 2019 oil portrait of Bezos by the renowned photorealist artist Robert McCurdy. In 2016, Bezos was a featured speaker at the National Air and Space Museum for the John H. Glenn Lecture in Space History and the National Museum of American History honored him with the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/jeff-bezos-gifts-historic-200-million-smithsonian

Source: Vox/Recode, Sara Morrison
Photo: MacKenzie Scott has given away $8.5 billion of her estimated $60 billion fortune. (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)

With a recent $2.7 billion announcement, the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos has donated $8.5 billion in less than a year.

MacKenzie Scott says she’s given away another chunk of her fortune: more than $2.7 billion. Along with the $1.7 billion announced in July 2020 and $4.2 billion in December, Scott has now given away about $8.5 billion in less than a year.

Scott, who is the billionaire ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, said the money will go to 286 organizations that she has identified as being “high impact” in “underfunded and overlooked” communities and categories. Her model of giving — direct no-strings-attached donations to organizations selected by a team of advisers — has made her an outlier in the billionaire charity world.

Scott announced the donations in a Medium post, where she pushed back at the idea of the media focusing on her personally when covering this news.

“Putting large donors at the center of stories on social progress is a distortion of their role,” she wrote. “It would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands, and that the solutions are best designed and implemented by others.”

The long list of beneficiaries includes schools and organizations dedicated to the arts, female empowerment, equity, anti-discrimination, and global poverty. The amounts given were not disclosed, but the University of Central Florida announced that it received $40 million from Scott, which was the largest single donation in the school’s history. And San Jacinto College received $30 million, which will be used to provide free tuition to thousands of recent high school graduates from nearby school districts.

“We [Scott, her husband, and her advisors] are all attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change,” Scott wrote.

This is Scott’s third release of funds since her divorce in 2019 from the Amazon founder made her one of the richest people in the world. Despite her generosity, Scott has still made more than she’s been able to give away: The Amazon shares she received in her $38 billion divorce settlement are now worth roughly $60 billion due to the company’s success during the pandemic, a reflection of how the wealthiest people in the world personally benefited while much of the rest of the world suffered.

The novelist’s style of philanthropy differs from her wealthy peers, who typically pledge large amounts of money to set up funds and foundations, which then take their time donating relatively small amounts. Scott’s ex, for instance, pledged $2 billion to fight homelessness with his Day One Families Fund, but the fund gives away about $100 million a year. He pledged $10 billion to fight climate change through the Bezos Earth Fund. In 2020, the fund gave away about $800 million. Oracle founder Larry Ellison’s foundation has been criticized for repeatedly failing to fulfill its promises.

Scott didn’t set up her own philanthropic foundation, but rather assembled a team — “a constellation of researchers and administrators and advisors,” as she put it in her Medium post — to identify organizations and areas that they felt could do the most good with the unrestricted funds they were given. In the past, some of the organizations that received her largess were quite surprised, given that they hadn’t applied for any grants. Some even thought the emails informing them that they’d been chosen were scams.

While this method has clearly helped her give away a lot of money very quickly, it’s also controversial due to its lack of transparency. Foundations have to disclose how much they give away and who they give it to; Scott does not. Still, it’s hard to criticize Scott when her donations have far outpaced those of her fellow billionaires.

https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/6/15/22535094/mackenzie-scott-charity-donations-amazon