Dec. 19—Christmas came early for New Mexico nonprofit Homewise as the organization received $35 million in donations from two groups.
Homewise received $25 million from MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving, a national organization, and another $10 million from Santa Fe-based Anchorum Health Foundation.
Homewise is a statewide mortgage lender with the goal of helping working-class New Mexicans become homeowners by offering “homebuyer education” and “individualized financial coaching.”
“One hundred percent of this is going to go into mortgages for people to buy a home or to fix their home and save energy or make repairs to build new homes. We’re not going to spend on operations. It’s all to be invested in the big picture,” Homewise CEO Michael Loftin told the Journal on Thursday.
He also reveled at the fact that his nonprofit was selected.
“New Mexico is just not on the map with national philanthropy that much, and the fact that we are on the map of somebody like McKenzie Scott is a huge deal. We’re hoping that, and we think that is a recognition of the partnerships we’ve already developed here,” Loftin said.
The $25 million from Scott was a fraction of the $2 billion she donated nationwide.
Scott is the ex-wife of Amazon co-founder and Albuquerque native Jeff Bezos.
Bezos himself donated money to Albuquerque nonprofits this year with his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, shelling out $6.25 million in donations to Catholic Charities and the Barrett Foundation. Sánchez is also an Albuquerque native.
When it comes to the other $10 million Homewise received, Anchorum Health Foundation CEO Jerry Jones — not to be confused with the owner of the Dallas Cowboys — said a decades-long partnership between the organizations played a key role in their selection.
“Their mission here in Northern New Mexico is all about helping create basically successful home buyers and so one of our very earliest impact investments was providing down payment assistance and mortgages for hospital associates,” Jones said.
Jones believes the donations can have a massive impact.
“This new investment of $10 million we really believe is catalytic because you have philanthropists like MacKenzie Scott and her Yield Giving Foundation, who are going to put in $25 million, so with our $10 million…that’s a $35 million fund towards affordable housing in this community,” Jones said. “That is a game changer.”