California Community Foundation Announces $20 Million Gift from Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott to Establish the LA Arts Endowment Fund

LOS ANGELES — The California Community Foundation or CCF announced June 16, a $20 million transformative gift from MacKenzie Scott, author, advocate, and philanthropist, which will be used to sustain and strengthen the Los Angeles region’s arts ecosystem through the creation of the LA Arts Endowment Fund.

The Endowment will support small to mid-sized organizations that play vital roles in their communities. The creation of the Endowment is about ensuring the long-term sustainability of nonprofit arts organizations by strengthening the infrastructure of the arts in Los Angeles County for the future.

Los Angeles County has one of the most vibrant and diverse arts communities in the nation, with a creative economy that generates more than $203 billion annually. The pandemic magnified pre-existing financial and structural challenges experienced by arts nonprofits. On average, arts organizations hold fewer than four months of operating cash reserves. 

In response to the toll that the pandemic has had on the arts, CCF joined more than a dozen foundations in creating the LA Arts Recovery Fund earlier this year. The Fund is a collaboration of local and national philanthropy and one of the largest-ever pooled private investments for arts in Los Angeles County. It is designed to sustain community organizations, promote cultural and economic recovery, restore community health and well-being and reaffirm the centrality of the arts in Los Angeles.

The Fund has already awarded 90 nonprofit organizations more than $36 million in grants for post-pandemic rebuilding. The grants will provide operating support over a period of two to three years, ensuring that these critical community organizations can begin the recovery process and re-envision their futures.

The Endowment will allow CCF’s commitment to the arts to extend beyond our ability to simply meet this moment through the important work of the Fund, by the creation of a permanent fund that will be able to address long-term systemic solutions for arts organizations in Los Angeles for years to come.