MacKenzie Scott & Yield Giving to Make Major Investment in Basta's National Expansion

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Jun 20, 2024, 08:35 ET

NEW YORK, June 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Basta, a New York-based nonprofit supporting first-generation college students of color seeking first jobs, announced a major investment from MacKenzie Scott to support an extensive national expansion plan. Scott's one-time gift of $4 million comes through her special purpose investment vehicle, Yield Giving, validating Basta's "social capital first" approach to career success.

Basta participant receiving resume coaching during a workshop.

"When we launched almost a decade ago, the zeitgeist was 'talent and skills,' but social capital wasn't a big part of the discourse about what drives social mobility for young job seekers," says Basta founder and CEO Sheila Saremzadeh. "Now, things have shifted. We have great organizational results, and the broader field is starting to think about leveling the playing field for who does not traditionally have access to blue-chip jobs."

That work is more critical than ever. In the coming weeks millions of first-generation college graduates will enter the job market; without significant interventions, more than half of them will be underemployed, leading to not just lost individual income, but a dampening of national GDP.

That doesn't have to be the case. Since 2016, more than 1,500 young people have completed Basta's flagship program, alumni from which get jobs twice as fast as their peers, often at the blue-chip companies in Basta's network of employer partners. Working with colleges and universities, Basta also equips more than 10,000 students with tailored career roadmaps. Using this new investment, Basta will work with colleges and nonprofits nationally to make its student-centered, data-driven programming available to hundreds of thousands more job seekers.

Scott's unique approach to philanthropy enables nonprofits to be expansive in how to solve complex problems. While most gifts have more prescriptive reporting requirements that make it difficult to pivot, Scott's trust-based approach allows for nonprofits to "learn out loud," ultimately leading to more impactful solutions.

"In addition to whatever assets life has nurtured in me, I have a disproportionate amount of money to share," Scott noted in a recent interview, "My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful. It will take time and effort and care. But I won't wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty."

With annual giving averaging around $3.3 billion in the last five years, Yield Giving isn't just changing the trajectory of individual organizations, but of philanthropy more broadly. "MacKenzie Scott is the only player, at her level of giving, affording this level of trust and respect to founders," says Basta's Saremzadeh. "Our path to scale has been validated by experts across sectors. If more donors shared her vision and guts, organizations like ours could thrive at a level that is currently unimaginable."

For media inquiries, please contact:
Soumountha Keophilavong
Senior Director of Marketing and Communications
Basta
[email protected]

SOURCE Basta