Stories about social change tend to focus on the people at the top of the story, the prominent leaders, the large institutions, the wealthy donors whose names end up in the headline. MacKenzie Scott, who has given away tens of billions of dollars since 2019, pushed back on that habit directly in her own words. "People struggling against inequities deserve center stage in stories about the change they are creating," she wrote, adding that this holds true "equally, perhaps especially, when their work is funded by wealth." She made this point while announcing a $2.7 billion round of donations to 286 organisations in June 2021, in a post where she explicitly said she had wanted the headline to read "286 Teams Empowering Voices the World Needs to Hear," rather than a story built around her own donation, a genuinely unusual instinct for someone whose name is one of the most recognisable in modern philanthropy.
Get breaking news anytime, anywhere. Download the TOI app now!
