San Francisco Organizations Awarded Grants By MacKenzie Scott

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Two San Francisco organizations — San Francisco Community Health Center and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — have been awarded grants by MacKenzie Scott, the philanthropist announced in a blog post.

San Francisco Community Health Center is "located in the Tenderloin, the epicenter of homelessness, substance use, mental illness, and HIV in San Francisco," and considers itself the ultimate safety net. It serves people of color and the LGBTQ communities.

According to its website, "YBCA was founded as the cultural anchor of San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Gardens neighborhood. Our work spans the realms of contemporary art, performance, film, civic engagement, and public life. By centering artists as essential to social and cultural movement, YBCA is reimagining the role an arts institution can play in the community it serves."

The exact amount of the gifts is not immediately available.

They are part of a larger, $2.7 billion giving spree by the 51-year-old Scott in which 286 organizations that have been "historically underfunded and overlooked" received sizable charitable donations.

Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, cited the growing wealth gap as a reason for the donations.

In a blog post announcing the donations, Scott said she worked with her new husband, Dan Jewett, a Seattle schoolteacher, and a "constellation of researchers, administrators and advisors" to help give away a portion of her $60 billion fortune.

"In this effort, we are governed by a humbling belief that it would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands, and that the solutions are best designed and implemented by others," she said.

Some of the recipients of the donations include groups fighting back against ethnic and religious discrimination, small art organizations catering to communities, artists typically overlooked by large donors, and organizations focused on empowering women and girls. She also focused her giving on two- and four-year schools whose students come from underserved communities.

Read more about San Francisco Community Health Center

Read more about Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

The East Bay Fund for Artists also received a grant in this round of giving.

See MacKenzie Scott's full blog post and entire list of grants.

— Alex Nguyen/Patch contributed to this article