St. Helena’s Penn Center gets $2 million. Meet the billionaire behind the surprise donation

Novelist and billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has donated $2 million to South Carolina’s Penn Center, the site of one of the first schools for freed slaves that today serves as a cultural and educational center.

The $2 million donation from Scott was the largest single gift in Penn’s 160-year history.

It was a drop in the bucket for Scott, who’s turned heads with the generosity of her gifts — she once gave the Girl Scouts of the USA $84.5 million — as well as her no-strings-attached approach.

For Penn Center, which had no idea the money was coming, the donation “hit like a ton of bricks,” said interim Executive Director Bernie Wright.

“We’re grateful,” Wright said.

Penn Center has no regular revenue stream and heavily relies on donations, Wright noted, with checks coming in daily that may range from $5 to $200. “That’s why,” Wright says, “we so graciously appreciate what people do for us.”

Wright says part of the money is being spent on restoring old buildings on the site that are important in preserving and interpreting Penn’s history and role in the Reconstruction and Civil Rights eras.

Scott’s charitable giving website, called Yield Giving, says it conducts “quiet research to identify candidate organizations working to advance the opportunities of people in under served communities.”

Penn Center officials, Wright said, did not apply for a donation from Scott and was not informed one was in the works. “We didn’t lobby her.”

Penn Center first disclosed the gift in April, describing it on its website only as “transformative.” Wright told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet on Wednesday that the gift mount was $2 million, and that the donation was actually made in 2021.

“Thanks to MacKenzie Scott’s support,” said Deloris P. Pringle, chair of the Penn Center’s Board, “we can preserve the past while elevating our public offerings and expanding our impact in our own time.”

The 50-acre Penn Center, which is located on St. Helena Island off Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, was opened in 1862 by northern abolitionists Laura Towne and Ellen Murray, friends who began teaching in the Sea Islands. They were eventually joined by Charlotte Forten, the first Black educator from the North to come to the Sea Islands during Reconstruction.

Today, Penn Center promotes historic preservation and economic sustainability throughout the Sea Islands and is committed to community development, education and social justice. Located within a National Historic Landmark District, it has 25 buildings and structures. It’s part of the The African American Civil Rights Network and Reconstruction Era National Park.

Many of the buildings, Wright said, are in rough shape and the center is in the process of repairing them. Half of Scott’s gift is going toward the restoration work and general operations. The other half was placed in an endowment.

Penn Center also has received $1.8 million from the state Legislature, Wright said, to restore the buildings and roads within the campus.

Currently, the Orchard Cottage is under construction, Wright said. It was built in 1942 as a teachers’ residence. In total, 14 buildings have been identified for restoration.

Maintaining the buildings is critical in preserving the historical context of Penn Center, Wright said. Penn Center, he added, benefits the entire region because it is a tourist attraction just like historic downtown Beaufort.

For example, when families attend graduations held weekly at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, Wright noted, they usually do not immediately return home.

“They linger,” Wright said. “That’s where we benefit and we have something to show. They want to see Penn Center. They want to see downtown Beaufort. They want to see the historic district. So that’s a natural draw. We want to keep it pristine and keep it historic to continue to have that draw.”

Scott, who has published two novels, was a student of author Toni Morrison at Princeton and worked as a research assistant for her, according to a Forbes profile. She was married to Amazon founder Bezos for 25 years. As part of their 2019 divorce, she received a 25% stake in the online retailer, according to Forbes, and soon after pledged to give away at least half of her wealth.

To date, Yield Giving says, Scott has donated $14 billion to some 1,600 not-for-profits “to use as they see fit for the benefit of others.”

A report on giving by the Center for Effective Philanthropy found that Scott’s median gift in 2020, her first year of giving, was $8 million, which was unprecedented, Philanthropy News Digest said. The not-for-profits, Forbes said, have full control over how to best deploy the funds they receive from Scott.