MacKenzie Scott’s Power Play: Why Unrestricted Funding Is Political
Apr 10, 2025
By Dr. Virginia Lacayo
It’s rare to see someone with wealth and privilege use it in a way that doesn’t reinforce the very systems that gave it to them. But MacKenzie Scott is doing something different. Something most funders—with their strategic plans and metrics and PR campaigns—can’t seem to grasp. Since 2019, Scott has donated over $16 billion to more than 1,900 organizations, primarily grassroots and community-based groups led by women, people of color, and those most impacted by systemic injustice. And she’s done it with no strings attached, no applications, and no fanfare—just trust and action.
She’s not just donating money.
She’s transferring power.
With democracy in decline, authoritarianism rising across continents, and civil society being squeezed by increasingly repressive governments, this is not the moment for cautious, incremental giving. This is the moment to flood movements with resources, trust, and autonomy.
MacKenzie Scott’s radical approach to philanthropy has made her a threat on two fronts. MAGA conservatives denounce her support of racial equity, LGBTQ+ rights, and grassroots justice work, while traditional philanthropists feel exposed by her trust-based giving that bypasses bureaucracy and power-hoarding. Elon Musk, feeling the sting of her independence, once took a jab at her on Twitter, blaming “super rich ex-wives” like her for the “death of Western Civilization.”
But Scott’s large, unrestricted, no-strings-attached funding approach isn’t just generous. It’s subversive and system-smart. It aligns with the principles of complexity science and Systemic Liberation, two frameworks that show us how to disrupt entrenched power and regenerate more just, adaptive systems in their place.
Let’s break this down.
Complexity Isn’t a Problem to Be Solved. It’s a Reality to Be Embraced.
Too many philanthropic models still operate as if the world were linear. They treat movements like machines, assuming that if you input X dollars and apply the Y strategy, you’ll get a Z outcome.
But that’s not how change happens—especially not in messy, dynamic systems like democracy, climate justice, or gender equity. These are not problems with simple causes or neat solutions. They are complex, adaptive challenges that evolve over time, influenced by history, power, culture, and resistance.
In their book “Getting to Maybe: How the World Is Changed”, the authors taught us that “in complexity, you don’t control. You cultivate. You listen. You respond.”
MacKenzie Scott is listening. She’s responding. She’s giving in ways that trust social change is emergent, not controlled.
By offering large, unrestricted funding, she’s creating the kind of fertile soil movements need to grow roots, adapt, and regenerate. She’s not micromanaging the shape of the tree—she’s tending to the health of the forest.
And that’s a crucial shift. Because in complex systems, control isn’t just ineffective—it’s oppressive.
Systemic Liberation Requires Redistributing Power—Not Just Wealth.
MacKenzie Scott’s approach to giving is a living example of the Systemic Liberation Framework we’ve created: redistributing power through trust, centering equity over control, and transforming philanthropy from a gatekeeping system into a catalyst for collective thriving.
However, the global philanthropic system is still largely white, top-down, paternalistic, and Western-centric. Even when the money flows to the Global South or marginalized communities, the decision-making power rarely does.
Scott is disrupting that.
She’s not sprinkling symbolic grants on “diverse” organizations to check a box. She’s funneling significant, no-strings-attached resources to Black-, Indigenous-, migrant-, queer-, and women-led organizations—both within the U.S. and internationally. Organizations that have been historically excluded from the philanthropic table, even as they’ve been feeding the world with their vision, labor, and love.
This is not charity. This is solidarity.
This is a shift from funding strategies written in glass towers to resourcing solutions born in the streets, community rooms, and citizen groups—solutions already being lived, dreamed, and defended by those most impacted.
When we fund these movements with unrestricted, long-term trust, we’re not just resourcing impact—we’re redistributing power. We’re saying: We see you. We trust you. We believe your liberation will lead us all.
Unrestricted Funding is a Tool for Resistance - and Resilience.
Authoritarianism is spreading all over the world through legislation, propaganda, and brute force.
And these regimes don’t just rely on power. They rely on exhaustion. They count on movements being underfunded, reactive, and disorganized.
It counts on organizers and activists being too burnt out to build, too underfunded to plan, too reactive to strategize.
While regimes push anti-rights legislation, criminalize dissent, and militarize borders, many activists are holding the line with part-time staff and duct-taped budgets.
This is not just a funding gap. It’s a systemic failure.
MacKenzie Scott’s model is a response to that failure. Her giving acknowledges a basic truth: movements can’t survive—much less win—on scarcity.
They need infrastructure. Leadership development. Time to rest, reflect, and reimagine.
Unrestricted funding is not a “nice to have”—it is a political act. It gives movements the capacity to prepare, not just respond. To organize, not just react. To thrive, not just survive.
And that capacity is what authoritarians fear most.
What Side of History Will Your Money Land On?
The question is not whether your money is making a difference. The question is: What kind of difference is it making?
Is it preserving the status quo or disrupting it?
Is it funding symptoms or dismantling root causes?
Is it upholding the illusion of control or embracing the messiness of emergence?
MacKenzie Scott isn’t perfect. No one is. But she’s showing us what it looks like to fund with Courage, System Thinking, and Conscience.
Encouragingly, MacKenzie Scott isn’t the only one. A growing movement of philanthropists and foundations are shifting away from extractive charity toward relational, reparative, and regenerative giving. Here are a few that deserve special attention for embodying this evolution—centering trust, equity, and lived experience in their funding models
Fondo Centroamericano de Mujeres Foundation
Open Society Foundations (OSF)
MATCH International Women's Fund
Furthermore, many next-generation donors and wealth inheritors are following suit, guided by the belief that philanthropy must be in service of justice, not control. Through groups like Resource Generation and Solidaire, they’re not just moving money—they’re shifting mindsets and, with them, the very purpose of giving itself.
This shift is promising. But it’s not happening fast enough. With democracy on life support, how many more warnings do funders need before they stop playing it safe?
Philanthropy Can No Longer Pretend Neutrality.
MacKenzie Scott and the other foundations and philanthropists mentioned above aren't positioning themselves as saviors. They are not asking for credit or controlling the narrative.
They are simply doing what every philanthropist with a conscience—and a systems lens—should be doing:
- Fund the people who live the fight.
- Fund movements, not moments.
- Give big, unrestricted, multi-year support.
- Stop managing. Start listening. Trust movements to define what they need.
- Be willing to lose control in service of collective power (get out of the way).
The future belongs to those bold enough to fund not what is safe, but what is just—and to do it like liberation isn’t a dream we’re chasing, but a reality we’re co-creating.
You don't need MacKenzie's wealth to be a Systems Shaker, but you probably do need fresh thinking and new tools for dealing with complex problems. Learn more here.
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