MacKenzie Scott’s $1B+ HBCU Giving Rooted in Toni Morrison Mentorship at Princeton

MacKenzie Scott's $1B+ HBCU Giving Rooted in Toni Morrison Mentorship at Princeton

MacKenzie Scott's billion-dollar commitment to historically Black colleges and universities traces back to her relationship with Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, her creative-writing professor at Princeton University, according to reporting from Fortune.

Morrison, who called Scott "one of the best students I've ever had in my creative-writing classes," shaped not only Scott's writing but her early career trajectory. Scott credited Morrison in a 2017 Princeton interview with helping her publish her first novel and secure early employment—where she later met Jeff Bezos at Amazon.

Scott, worth more than $39 billion, has emerged as one of the nation's most prolific philanthropists. In 2025 alone, she donated $7.2 billion to nonprofits, bringing her total giving since 2019 to more than $26 billion. She is a signatory of the Giving Pledge, committed to distributing the majority of her wealth during her lifetime.

More than $700 million of Scott's 2025 donations went to HBCUs, according to the source material. The connection underscores how early mentorship and intellectual formation can shape philanthropic priorities decades later—a dynamic finance leaders tracking major donor behavior should note as wealth transfer accelerates.