Three Hawaii nonprofits are among the 361 community-led organizations nationwide receiving grants from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving program, which shares a financial fortune with nonprofits worldwide.
Habilitat, Ma Ka Hana Ka ‘Ike and Malama ‘Aina Foundation will each receive $2 million. Since its inception, Yield Giving has donated over $17.3 billion to more than 2,300 nonprofits.
Formed in 1971, Habilitat is a long-term addiction treatment center with programs focused on empowering individuals to make better decisions in their lives through a holistic approach. The organization runs an annual Christmas tree sale fundraiser, yard services and a culinary training program that provides meals to other nonprofits.
Executive director Jeff Nash said that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization expanded their services to include housing after treatment.
“We have been pondering ways to expand our services. The need for services in Hawaii is great,” Nash said. “We found that there’s a huge demand (for housing), and in doing our market research, we found out that there’s not a lot of affordable, supportive housing for women and children.”
Nash said that the organization plans to have a clear strategic plan on how to apply the funds in the coming weeks, but that he hopes to use the grant to expand housing services specifically for women and women with children.
“With a grant this size and from an organization as esteemed as this one, we want to be good stewards of this gift, and we want to make sure that the money goes to do exactly what we said we would do — expand our services and improve our outcomes,” Nash said.
Maui-based organization Ma Ka Hana Ka ‘Ike is a vocational training program for K-12 students and teaches academic subjects through hands-on application that can be applied to community needs.
“This gift positions us to explore avenues, initiatives and improvements to our systems, programming and internal operations previously beyond our reach or capacity,” Ma Ka Hana Ka ‘Ike executive director Lipoa Kahaleuahi said in a news release.
Malama ‘Aina Foundation officials say they work in underserved communities to empower future generations through STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts and math) education rooted in Native Hawaiian culture.
Alison Kulanikauha’a Masutani, the foundation’s president, said the group applied for the grant after the COVID-19 pandemic hurt communities served by the organization.
“We look forward to continuing our effective after- school programming, developing mobile STEAM learning platforms to reach more remote communities and offering Trauma-Informed Care training to schools and the community,” Masutani said in a news release.
In March 2023, Yield Giving announced an open call for “community-led, community-focused organizations whose explicit purpose is to advance the voices and opportunities of individuals and families of meager or modest means, and groups who have met with discrimination and other systemic obstacles,” according to Lever for Change, a nonprofit affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
The open call, which originally planned to award 250 awards of $1 million each, received over 6,300 applications. In the fall, organizations that were top-rated by their peers advanced to a second round of review by an external evaluation panel. Impressed by the work being reviewed, the program expanded the awardee pool and award amount to $2 million each to 279 organizations in the top tier of scoring and $1 million each to 82 in the next scoring tier.
For the organizations on the receiving end, the significance of the grants cannot be overstated.
“When a philanthropist comes along and says, ‘We evaluated your organization. You guys are doing good work and have been for a long time. You’re fiscally responsible. Here’s $2 million, go do your thing,’ that’s a small nonprofit’s dream come true right there,” Nash said. “The more we can expand, the more that we can help our community.”
