Why The Girl Scouts Were Just Given An Incredibly Large Sum Of Money
Philanthropist and ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, Mackenzie Scott, donated $84.5 million to the Girl Scouts, to ensure that the organization has the resources to continue to empower and inspire young girls all over the world well into the future.
Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) or better known as Girl Scouts, is a youth organization for girls that promotes compassion, courage, character, confidence, leadership, and entrepreneurship. These skills are taught by the use of activities that involve acts of community service, camping, and first-aid, and the Girl Scouts are able to earn badges as these are acquired. As one of the largest organizations in the world for Girls with over 2.5 million members worldwide, it was quite a surprise and treat to find out one single individual had gifted the Girl Scouts 84.5 million dollars.
According to NPR, Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated 84.5 million dollars to the Girl Scouts organization and twenty-nine of its local branches. Sofia Chang, CEO of GSUSA, stated in an interview, “Her support of our organization means honestly just as much as the donation”. Chang continued on to say this was by far the largest donation the Girl Scouts have ever received from an individual since the organization was initially founded in 1912.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Girl Scout memberships have drastically decreased and Chang is hopeful some of these funds can be utilized to assist in the recovery of the number of memberships. The Girl Scouts plan to support staff, and volunteers and make the necessary revisions to ensure the organizational camps are more resilient to any impacts of climate. This funding will also assist in providing newer technology that will aid in the future educational training and programs necessary to keep the Girl Scout troops more accessible.
Other Girl Scout branches are choosing to use the funds provided by Scott to enhance the work they are already currently in process of completing instead of kicking off new initiatives or programs for the local troops. Gifts of this magnitude do not come around like this very often and being able to hire more staff, purchase a larger van for transporting the Girl Scouts, and provide better classroom technology is the focus for the Arizona branch. Many consumers believe the sales from the ever-so-loved and iconic cookies are more than enough to keep the lights on and that is far from the truth, describes one local Girl Scout employee.
The news from CNN explains in more detail how Scott became one of the wealthiest women in the world after her divorce back in 2019 from the founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos. Shortly after the divorce was finalized, Scott announced her plan for charitable donations to the sum of 2.7 billion dollars to over 300 organizations. One of her largest was in the amount of 436 million dollars being gifted to the Habitat for Humanity International organization, which is used to promote homeownership for those that have full-time jobs and are willing to volunteer a certain number of hours to assist in building their new home.
The number of Philanthropic’s giving to organizations that are specifically designed to serve girls and women is representative of less than 2% of all donations. The charitable donation by Scott is hopeful to pave the way for future donations that have drawn attention to what the Girl Scout organization represents and can do for future troops.
