OK nonprofit receives $2M grant from billionaire MacKenzie Scott: 'Vital agents of change'
An Oklahoma City nonprofit said a $2 million grant from billionaire MacKenzie Scott will help fund "sustainable change" in NE OKC focus area. Oklahoma City nonprofit, RestoreOKC, has received a $2 million grant from billionaire MacKenzie Scott's philanthropy, Yield Giving. The nonprofit was chosen from a pool of 6,000 applicants and required to participate in a multifaceted evaluation process. The philanthropy distributed a total of $640 million in grants, in increments of between $1 million and $2m. The grantees were selected for their work advancing the voices and opportunities of individuals and families of low or modest means who have faced discrimination or systemic obstacles. Caylee Dodson, RestoreOkC's executive director, said the organization plans to use the funds to shore up processes and infrastructure around key community needs.
Published : a month ago by Carla Hinton, The Oklahoman in Business
An Oklahoma City nonprofit has received a $2 million grant from billionaire MacKenzie Scott.
RestoreOKC was recently chosen as one of 361 grant recipients by Scott's philanthropy Yield Giving. Scott is widely known as a philanthropist, author and ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon.
"To say we're blown away is the understatement of the century," Caylee Dodson, RestoreOKC executive director, said.
RestoreOKC, along with other grant recipients, was chosen from a pool of 6,000 applicants and required to participate in a multifaceted evaluation process, according to Scott's statement posted on the Yield Giving website. The philanthropy distributed a total of $640 million in grants, in increments of between $1 million and $2 million, according to its website.
The community-led nonprofits were selected to receive the funding "for their outstanding work advancing the voices and opportunities of individuals and families of meager or modest means, and groups who have met with discrimination and other systemic obstacles," Scott said in her statement. "They are vital agents of change."
Dodson, who was named 2022 Oklahoma Woman of the Year by the USA Today Network, has described RestoreOKC as a community development ministry in northeast Oklahoma City. Its mission is to bridge relationships of reconciliation for restorative justice, with a focus on addressing the physical, social, emotional, educational and economic needs of residents of Oklahoma City's northeast community, which is a predominantly Black part of the city.
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The nonprofit, 2222 NE 27, is particularly known for opening an organic grocer called The Market at EastPoint, 1708 NE 23, with help from community partners.
At the time of its grand opening in April 2021, it was seen as an answer to "food desert" status that the northeast Oklahoma City community had at the time. The store, found and run by RestoreOKC, and partnered with Homeland offers a variety of fresh produce — much of which comes from RestoreOKC's Urban Farm ― plus discounted dairy, subsidized meats and canned goods that were hard to come by in that area of the city at that time.
In addition to the store and urban farm, the organization has assisted residents with home repair, helped improve homes for rentals and rent-to-own opportunities, come alongside local schools and parents to improve the lives of students and helped employ residents in need of jobs.
Dodson said she appreciated the "incredible" grant application process because those making assessments explored the agency's impact on the community but "also how we do what we do — that we don't do that by helicoptering in and trying to fix a community that we don't understand — but we actually live in and belong to the community, we have leadership from the community, and that everything is an outflow of relationship."
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How will RestoreOKC spend the money?
Dodson said she knew the "$2 million question" was how the nonprofit would use the huge grant. She said the organization's leaders have always tried to go to the people they serve to get ideas about what they would like to see happen in their community and the influx of $2 million won't change that process.
"In some ways, I think it would be far sexier to say we're gonna dump $2 million into education or any of those things, but I think what we've seen over and over again in our communities is that money alone doesn't solve the problem," Dodson said.
"So we're going to continue to innovate holistically with our community and neighbors. We're going to use the $2 million in a lot of ways to shore up processes and infrastructure around the things that we grew in so substantially during COVID, to make sure we have the right experts and the right community leaders in the right spaces to ensure that things like food security and affordable housing and educational equity, can continue on and have the longevity that it needs to be sustainable and truly cause community flourishing."
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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: MacKenzie Scott donates $2M to Oklahoma nonprofit RestoreOKC
Topics: Nonprofits