MacKenzie Scott has given $20 million to Active Minds, a US nonprofit focused on youth and young-adult mental health advocacy. Active Minds announced the contribution on July 7, 2026, calling it the largest gift in the organisation's history.
The most important word in the announcement may be unrestricted. The money is not limited to one campaign or a donor-designed project. Active Minds can decide how to use it within its mission, based on the needs it sees across schools, campuses and communities.
The gift follows a previous $4 million contribution from Scott in 2021. It arrives as US public-health data continues to show substantial mental-health distress among high-school students.
What Active Minds says it will support
Active Minds says it has been working with its board, youth and young-adult leaders, and school partners on a multi-year strategy for the gift. The plan is centred on national infrastructure that can build community, mobilise young leaders, fund youth-led solutions and bring young people's perspectives into wider systems and policy conversations.
The organisation specifically named its Mental Health Advocacy Academy for high-school students and Mental Health Advocacy Institute for college students. It says these programmes are intended to help more young people develop leadership, advocacy and organising skills.
Active Minds also expects the funding to broaden access to its national programmes, including opportunities to build mental-health literacy, strengthen peer networks and take part in community change. These are the organisation's stated plans; the announcement does not itself prove what results the new funding will produce.
Why unrestricted funding is unusual
Scott's approach has attracted attention because her large gifts generally arrive without the detailed restrictions common in institutional philanthropy. The Associated Press reported that she gave $7.1 billion to nonprofits in 2025, bringing her disclosed giving since 2019 to $26.3 billion. AP also noted that the gifts often come with no strings attached and can be large relative to a recipient's annual budget.
For Active Minds, that flexibility means leaders are not required to spend all $20 million on a single programme. They can make longer-term choices about staffing, organisational capacity, training, access and programme support. Active Minds says those choices are being shaped with input from young people and school partners.
Unrestricted does not mean unplanned. The significance is that the nonprofit, rather than the donor, gets room to set priorities and adjust them as needs change.
Why youth-led work is central
Active Minds says its first college chapter launched in 2001 and that its peer-led programmes, education, advocacy and community initiatives have since reached more than 4.5 million youth and young adults.
That youth-led emphasis fits a prevention and connectedness framework, but it should not be confused with clinical care. Student leaders are not substitutes for trained mental-health professionals. Their role can include changing how mental health is discussed, strengthening peer connection, sharing reliable resources and helping people recognise when professional or crisis support is needed.
The scale of the need is clear in CDC data. In the nationally representative 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey of US students in grades 9 to 12, 39.7% reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, 28.5% reported poor mental health, 20.4% said they had seriously considered attempting suicide and 9.5% reported a suicide attempt. Those figures describe survey responses over specified time periods; they are not clinical diagnoses.
CDC's analysis also found that high school connectedness was associated with a lower prevalence of all four mental-health and suicide-risk indicators studied. That is an association, not proof that any single programme causes better outcomes. Still, it supports the broader case for schools, families and communities to build relationships in which young people feel known, supported and connected.
A large gift is capacity, not a guaranteed result
The $20 million gift gives Active Minds unusual flexibility to expand youth leadership and strengthen its national work. Its real effect will depend on how the multi-year strategy is carried out, who gains access and what the organisation learns from young participants and school partners.
The careful conclusion is not that one donation will solve the youth mental-health crisis. It is that unrestricted funding can give an established youth-led organisation more room to invest, adapt and build for the long term without pretending that culture change replaces professional care.
If you need help now
In the United States, call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or use the chat at https://988lifeline.org. You can also text BRAVE to 741741 for crisis-text support. If there is immediate danger, call emergency services. Outside the United States, contact local emergency services or a local crisis-support line.
This article is for general information only. It is not medical advice and is not a substitute for assessment, diagnosis or treatment by a qualified professional.
Sources
Active Minds official release, July 7, 2026: https://activeminds.org/press-release/mackenzie-scotts-20-million-dollar-gift-accelerates-active-minds-national-leadership-in-youth-mental-health/
CDC youth mental health overview: https://www.cdc.gov/healthy-youth/mental-health/index.html
CDC MMWR analysis of the 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/su/su7304a9.htm
Associated Press background on Scott's 2025 giving: https://apnews.com/article/mackenzie-scott-giving-2025-d7a1d58500696446406b1157058ae402
