Girl Scouts of the USA, an organisation with 110 years of history, said Tuesday that philanthropist MacKenzie Scott had donated $84.5 million to the organisation and 29 of its local branches.

“Her support of our organization means honestly just as much as the donation,” GSUSA CEO Sofia Chang said in an interview.

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According to Chang, it is the biggest donation a single person has given to the Girl Scouts since they were established in 1912. The money will aid in the organization’s recovery from the pandemic’s adverse effects, which reduced membership.

In order to increase accessibility for their troops, the Girl Scouts intend to support volunteers and staff, improve science and technology education for young members, increase camp property resistance to the effects of climate change, and create programmes for diversity and inclusion.

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According to CEO Kristen Garcia-Hernandez, the Girl Scout council in Southern Arizona decided to utilise the $1.4 million it got from Scott to improve the work they are already doing instead of launching a new programme or initiative.

“We are a small council and we’re certainly not in a major metropolitan hub. So for us, gifts of this magnitude don’t come around very often,” Garcia-Hernandez added.

With the help of the donation, they can hire more personnel more quickly and offer programming all year round in the majority of the seven counties they serve. The council will also complete a project they’ve been trying to fund for a year and a half: outfitting a van as a mobile science and technology classroom. According to her, many local donors appear to believe that the Girl Scouts’ cookie sales will cover all of their costs.

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“While the cookie program sustains us certainly and it’s wonderful and the girls are part of that process, which makes it even more beautiful, we certainly need more from the community,” Garcia-Hernandez stated.

A study by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy found that less than 2% of all donations are made to charities that cater to the needs of women and girls. The institute discovered that between 2012 and 2019, the study’s tracking years, the proportion did not change considerably.

Major donations from female philanthropists like Melinda French Gates, Sheryl Sandberg, and Scott, according to Tessa Skidmore, a research associate at the institute, could motivate other donors.

“Those are the types of things that have the potential to change that number,” Skidmore said.

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On October 11, the International Day of the Girl, the institute collaborated with Pivotal Ventures, the investment company formed by French Gates, and other organisations to promote contributing to women and girls. Additionally, it makes its giving data available in the hopes that donors or researchers may use it to assess the gender equity of donations.

 Scott talks rarely about her donations, which has totalled $12 billion since 2019. She has made significant, unrestricted grants to a wide range of organisations, but her donations have a particular focus on racial fairness. Scott also gave the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates a record-breaking $275 million this year.

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Scott filed for divorce from her second husband, Dan Jewett, in September. Jewett’s profile was also taken down from The Giving Pledge’s website, which encourages millionaires to donate more than half of their money over the course of their lifetimes. Last year, the former couple announced their decision to donate Scott’s wealth, which is mostly the result of her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, on the website.

During the pandemic, the Girl Scouts’ enrollment among young people dropped considerably, falling by over 30% from roughly 1.4 million in 2019–2020 to a little over 1 million in 2021–2022. Chang recognised the decline but argued that the organization’s activities constantly assist girls in gaining confidence and addressing issues in their neighbourhood.

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“Our traditional way of supporting girls was really upended during the pandemic as troops couldn’t really meet in person,” Chang noted. “So to build back stronger than we ever had before, we’re really listening to our Girl Scouts, listening to their families and to our volunteers to really ensure that what comes next for us is truly impactful in this moment.”