The Trevor Project said it received a $45 million gift from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott at the end of 2025, a donation the organization said Monday is its largest ever.
The Trevor Project said the gift is coming after years that included management turmoil and layoffs, along with the loss of significant federal funding over the summer.
Jaymes Black, the nonprofit’s CEO, said they were notified of Scott’s gift recently and described their reaction as disbelief. “I literally could not believe it and it took some time. I actually gasped,” Black said.
Scott’s fortune largely comes from her ex-husband Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and she gave more than $7 billion to nonprofits in 2025, according to the report. The Trevor Project donation, however, was not included among the donations Scott disclosed on her website in December. The Trevor Project previously received $6 million from Scott in 2020.
The donation also arrives as the Trevor Project adapts after federal changes to support for LGBTQ+ youth through the 988 National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. In July, the Trump administration stopped providing specific support for gay, trans and gender nonconforming young people who called 988, the organization said. The Trevor Project said it had been one of the organizations staffing that option and that it lost $25 million in funding.
The Trevor Project said it continues to run an independent hotline for LGBTQ+ young people. Black said the hotline reaches about 250,000 young people annually, and said the organization also served another 250,000 callers through the 988 “Press 3” option tailored for LGBTQ+ young people.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported more than 1.5 million contacts were routed through the 988 service between Sept. 2022 and July 2025.
Scott Bertani, director of advocacy at the National Coalition for LGBTQ Health, said that since the program ended, the Trevor Project’s hotline has become even more central to mental health support for queer young people. In a statement, Bertani said the services “fill a gap that generic crisis lines simply aren’t designed to meet, particularly for young people facing identity-based stress, isolation or rejection.”
The Trevor Project has faced internal upheaval as well. According to public tax returns cited in the report, the nonprofit’s budget grew from around $4 million in 2016 to over $83 million in 2023. The board removed the CEO in 2022, and layoffs followed, including in July, the report said. Black said the project’s 2026 budget was $47 million.
“We are a smaller organization than we were before,” Black said, adding that the nonprofit would be intentional about growth.
After the Trevor Project lost its 988 funding, it launched an emergency fundraiser that raised $20 million to date, Black said. Black said it was hoped Scott would see the fundraiser as proof the organization could make it through the period.
Black said Scott’s team told the organization the gift was made for long-term impact, and that the nonprofit would “take our time” deciding how to use the funds. Black called Scott’s second gift “a powerful validation,” adding, “We’re calling this our turnaround story.”
Thad Calabrese, a professor at New York University who researches nonprofit financial management, said it is not uncommon for nonprofits that grow very quickly to run into financial problems. He also said cuts and general instability in federal funding for nonprofits can upend business models, noting that research often treats public funding as stable before considering how political fortunes can shift.
Calabrese said research is also unclear whether diversifying an organization’s revenue streams is always a better strategy, asking whether nonprofits have the management capacity to handle many revenue sources.
MacKenzie Scott has distinguished herself among major individual donors by giving large, unrestricted gifts to nonprofits, often focused on equity or social justice, the report said. With the exception of an open call in 2023, Scott does not ask for project proposals nor accept applications, according to the report.
The report cited research from the Center for Effective Philanthropy finding that concerns about nonprofits misusing Scott’s funds or growing unsustainably have largely not been borne out. Elisha Smith Arrillaga, the center’s vice president of research, said that is likely because of “vigorous vetting” by Scott’s team before making gifts.
Arrillaga also said that donors invest with specific outcomes in mind, quoting: “People make all different kinds of investments because they really believe in the outcomes that organization can make and what their gifts can do to help accelerate that.”
In an essay announcing her 2025 gifts, Scott wrote about the “potential of peaceful, non-transactional contribution” and questioned whether supposed liabilities might be “assets.” She also wrote about whether the vulnerability of organizations could be “a powerful engine for our generosity,” the report said.