This Philly nonprofit received $4 million from Amazon shareholder MacKenzie Scott

Cait Garozzo was hopeful when she received an email to schedule a call with someone working on behalf of private philanthropists.

Garozzo, executive director of the nonprofit West Philadelphia Skills Initiative (WPSI), had a meeting with members from a nonprofit consulting group in December to discuss funding. Two weeks ago, that same group emailed her to schedule a call.

The call started with them telling Garozzo how excited they are about the work, approach, and outcomes being accomplished at WPSI, which is under the umbrella of University City District (UCD).

Then they continued: “MacKenzie Scott would like to give a $4 million, one-time donation to the West Philadelphia Skills Initiative,” Garozzo recalled them saying.

She started jumping up and down in excitement; her colleague fell into a chair in disbelief. The whole office erupted into applause after they shared the news, and that Friday afternoon they toasted with a bottle of champagne they found in their kitchen, raising a glass to their future.

Scott, an Amazon.com shareholder, novelist, and philanthropist who has donated billions to charities since her divorce from Jeff Bezos,, gifted the workforce-development nonprofit $4 million in unrestricted funding, UCD announced Monday. The donation is being made through Scott’s philanthropic organization Yield Giving.

“Every neighborhood in Philadelphia exudes talent, and this investment will accelerate the work of the Skills Initiative to connect unstoppable local talent to life-changing opportunity,” UCD president Matt Bergheiser said in a press release.

WPSI was founded in 2011 to connect West Philadelphians with local job opportunities through relationship-building and trainings. Since its formation, the program has had over 1,700 participants that have been connected with local employers. Together, their earnings have exceeded over $100 million.

The amount of the donation, coupled with it being unrestricted, is transformative for the organization’s goals, Garozzo said.

“We can continue our mission of not just connecting talent to great opportunities in our neighborhood, but we can further the mission of creating a new paradigm for workforce development in which relationships and humans are at the center of the numbers and outcomes,” Garozzo said.

The sizable donation will allow WPSI to not only grow their team — which is always welcome in small nonprofits that are often at-capacity — but also experiment with other forms of support for their participants.

“A lot of philanthropic dollars, and public dollars, can’t go toward some of the biggest barrier-removal needs that folks have,” Garozzo said. “So we want to be able to use that money to do what we think is right as we support people getting connected to their careers.”

For example, WPSI offers alumni of their training program support to return to college or obtain credentials to accelerate their career paths. With this new funding, WPSI could increase scholarships to those people, or support them in covering unpaid bills or fees.

Garozzo also emphasized that one of the biggest challenges program participants face is the impact transitioning from long-term unemployment to a professional career has on their personal lives. Participants may find themselves scrambling to run errands, find child care, or access transportation.

“How do we take care of your whole family and your whole support system, so you can take care of yourself and contribute more fully to that support system?” Garozzo said. “Those are all things that we’ve been dying to do, and this money gives us an opportunity to be really critical and understand how we can have an impact in that space.”