MacKenzie Scott is one of today’s most prominent philanthropists, having given away more than $26 billion since 2019. But she does things a little differently: She typically lets recipients decide how to spend the donations. Meanwhile, many of the biggest donors to democracy programs have taken a different route by putting their names on the institutions they fund.
In a new report, The Chronicle of Philanthropy counted 18 gifts of $1 million or more to democracy programs since 2006, worth a combined $369.2 million. Many of the publicly announced gifts on the Chronicle’s list went to university institutes and centers focused on democracy, government, and public policy.
About 72% of that money, or $266.5 million, came from 2021 through 2025, with peak giving in 2024 at $84 million. Universities collected roughly $4 of every $5, and the four largest gifts, worth a combined $189 million, went to university institutes that carry the donors’ names. That’s a different model from Scott’s: Rather than funding a specific program with her name attached, she typically gives unrestricted money and lets recipients decide how to spend it.
For example, Democracy Works, the nonprofit behind the voter-engagement platform TurboVote, in 2023 announced it had received an unrestricted gift from Scott, the largest single donation in its history. CEO Luis Lozada said the money “sets a strong foundation for Democracy Works to continue to innovate.” Unlike the institutes on the Chronicle’s list, the group didn’t have to build anything around Scott’s name. It was picked through Scott’s organization Yield Giving’s own research process.
Scott’s hands-off approach extends well beyond democracy work.
“She practices trust-based philanthropy,” Anne Marie Dougherty, CEO of the veteran-focused Bob Woodruff Foundation, told Fortune last year. Scott gave the foundation $15 million in 2022, then the largest gift in its history, and another $20 million in 2025.
Named gifts can still fund substantial work, from new research institutes to expanded student programs.
The names behind the institutes
On the Chronicle’s list, the biggest single gift came from Leonard Schaeffer, the founder of health insurer Wellpoint and a public policy professor at the University of Southern California. In 2024, Schaeffer and his late wife, Pamela, gave $59 million to launch the Leonard D. Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy & Government Service, which USC says is the first major research and education center headquartered at its Capital Campus in Washington, D.C. His name was already on campus. A 2009 gift created the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics, which now houses the new institute.
Francis and Kathleen Rooney gave the second-largest gift: $55 million to the University of Notre Dame in 2025 to endow the Rooney Democracy Institute. It was previously known as the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy, which the couple’s foundation established in 2008. Francis Rooney, a Republican, represented Florida’s Fort Myers area in the House from 2017 to 2021, and was previously CEO of investment and holding company Rooney Holdings Inc.
At the University of Virginia, Oaktree Capital Management cofounder Bruce Karsh and his wife, Martha, both UVA Law alumni, gave $50 million in 2021 to establish the Karsh Institute of Democracy. UVA said it planned to match the gift. The couple said at the time that democracy’s institutions must not only be studied and understood, “but also vigilantly protected and strengthened.” The following year, John Nau III’s foundation gave $15 million to endow the Karsh Institute. That brings UVA’s take on the Chronicle’s list to $65 million, more than any other recipient.
Richard and Nancy Kinder’s $25 million gift to the University of Missouri in 2022 expanded the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy, bringing the couple’s total giving to the institute to $60 million. Their foundation first endowed the institute in 2015. Kinder is a Kinder Morgan cofounder who earned his undergraduate and law degrees at Mizzou.
Despite these major donations, democracy remains a small share of what wealthy donors give, the Chronicle reports. Like Scott, most of their money still goes to education and health care. Scott has donated more than $1 billion to HBCUs, and health care was Yield Giving’s top category in absolute dollars in 2023, according to a Harvard Business School study.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
