MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates are two of the biggest names in philanthropy today.
It’s rare that one woman’s giving is driving the discussion in philanthropy, let alone two. Most often it’s men like Michael Bloomberg or Warren Buffett who gain the spotlight and shift the conversation or couples like John and Laura Arnold or Eric and Wendy Schmidt. Men and couples certainly dominate our annual Philanthropy 50 list of the year’s biggest donors. But now, because of the huge sums involved, and the often unorthodox ways they give, Scott and French Gates are center stage.
It’s tempting to lump the two women together. Both were married to men who built global technology companies and are among the wealthiest people on the planet. Both signed the Giving Pledge, promising to give away the majority of their wealth. In a July New York Times article, French Gates said that Scott, who is a friend, had an effect on her giving and she hoped that she, too, had influenced Scott’s philanthropy.
But the contrasts in Scott’s and French Gates’s philanthropy are just as intriguing — and perhaps even more so. Here’s what we know so far about their similarities and differences:
Melinda French Gates has been a high-profile philanthropist for a long time, while MacKenzie Scott is relatively new on the scene.
French Gates is co-founder of one of the largest and most influential foundations in the world and has decades of grant-making experience she can draw on. She announced in May that she was leaving the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with $12.5 billion to give away.
Melinda French Gates is going to be a voice in philanthropy. MacKenzie Scott is essentially making her influence felt.
The Gates Foundation, founded in 2000, has been a driving force in data-driven philanthropy. But now that French Gates is no longer with the foundation, there are signs that she is relying less on that approach, says Joanne Florino, the Adam Meyerson Distinguished Fellow in Philanthropic Excellence, at the Philanthropy Roundtable.
“I doubt she’ll ever ignore data altogether. I don’t know that that’s in her constitution to do that,” she says. “I know she’s been trying to loosen up on that a bit, to put a bit more of that trust-based philanthropy in there.”
Scott is a comparative newcomer, announcing in 2019 that she intended to give away her fortune. Since then, she’s donated $17.3 billion.
Scott is a famously reticent public figure. French Gates embraces the bully pulpit.
French Gates uses her stature to advance the issues and ideas she cares about. She isn’t shy about talking to the media, even appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in July. She is a passionate advocate for the advancement of women and girls and isn’t afraid to wade into politics. Last month, she endorsed Kamala Harris for president. Pivotal Ventures declined to comment.
Scott takes a very different approach. Other than a few posts on Medium and other social media sites that ended about two years ago, she shuns publicity. Her Yield Giving website says: “In order to cede focus to the organizations we’re supporting, we choose not to participate in events or media stories.”
“Melinda French Gates is going to be a voice in philanthropy,” Florino says. “MacKenzie Scott is essentially making her influence felt.”
Both donors give through limited-liability companies, but they take different approaches to transparency.
French Gates gives through Pivotal Ventures, an LLC she set up in 2015. LLCs are not required to disclose their charitable activities, and Pivotal generally has not. In May, however, French Gates announced $1 billion in giving through 2026 and included a list of individuals and organizations that will receive funds. French Gates started a private foundation, the Pivotal Philanthropies Foundation, in 2022 with an endowment of $675 million.
Scott also gives through an LLC — Yield Giving — but posts a database of all the gifts it has given on its website. Not all grants list the sum given; Scott leaves it up to recipient organizations whether to publicly share how much money they received.
Gabrielle Fitzgerald, CEO of Panorama Global, a nonprofit that has published research on Scott’s giving, thought that Scott’s writing about generosity and her bold giving would encourage other donors to emulate her — that they would make large unrestricted grants without a large team or bureaucratic process. At this point, that doesn’t seem to have happened.
“When Panorama started our research tracking her giving, we assumed we would be tracking the impact on both the nonprofit sector and the philanthropic sector,” she says. “We have not heard a lot of examples of philanthropists being encouraged to start giving.”
Both embrace trust-based philanthropy.
Scott and French Gates have eschewed big staffs and overwrought theories of change for smaller, nimbler operations that sometimes trust others to find the best ways to use the funds, says Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy. The center also received a gift from Scott and is studying the impact of her gifts on the nonprofits that receive them.
“They don’t assume the donor has the answer,” he says. “Both of their approaches seem to be based on the assumption that relevant expertise and knowledge about how to address challenges or issues or problems resides closer to those challenges, issues, or problems.”
For example, Scott has used Lever for Change to accept unsolicited applications from small nonprofits as a way to award money to organizations that are often left out of the world of big philanthropy. Gates plans to work with the organization on an open call for applications starting this fall.
Both donors seek to shift existing power dynamics in philanthropy. That said, they’re pursing that goal though different strategies.
Melinda French Gates, for example, has given $20 million each to 12 individuals to distribute to the nonprofits of their choice. That means the money is likely to go out to a different cadre of organizations than if it had been distributed by a foundation or even a regranting organization, says Elisha Smith Arrillaga, vice president for research at the Center for Effective Philanthropy.
“Part of what’s exciting to me is thinking about individuals whose networks are fundamentally different than those you would come across if you hired a consulting firm to do a review of nonprofit organizations,” she says.
MacKenzie Scott has taken on the power dynamics in philanthropy by giving unrestricted funding with no reporting requirements. Another way she’s relinquishing control: by making gifts to organizations that make grants to other nonprofits. According to the Center for Effective Philanthropy report, 13 percent of her giving has gone to such groups. She has also supported organizations that give money directly to individuals, including a total of $125 million in four contributions to GiveDirectly.
Both donors have been important advocates in their own ways for a different model of giving, says Jacqueline Ackerman, interim director of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
“The important thing is that they are practicing what we see as trust-based philanthropy,” she says. “That moves some of the power from the donor to the recipient and to the folks who are most impacted by the issues that these women are seeking to change.”
Scott supports a broad range of causes, while French Gates’s giving is more focused.
In May, French Gates announced $1 billion in funding for women and girls initiatives over the next two years. It’s a cause she has long supported and that she has said will be an important part of her giving going forward. Scott shares her interest. The two donors both contributed to the Equality Can’t Wait Challenge, which in 2021 awarded $10 million each to four organizations focused on gender equity.
But Scott’s giving embraces a broad range of issues. The top four: equity and justice, education, health, and economic security and opportunity, according to a 2024 report by Panorama Global.
More recent grants have focused on housing, and she has been a generous donor to historically Black colleges and universities, which have often been neglected by major donors. She’s also directed money to crises like the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the movement for racial equity.
