In June 2020, McKinsey announced our 10 actions to accelerate change within our firm and help combat racism across the world. This included a commitment of $200 million over the next 10 years in pro bono work globally to advance racial equity and economic empowerment among Black communities, and a commitment to donate $5 million in cash in 2020 to nonprofits working to create educational opportunities and combat racism.
The process for allocating this $5 million gift was designed and led by the McKinsey Black Network (MBN), a global network of Black colleagues and alumni. Under the network’s leadership and guidance, we organized regional townhalls and charitable-giving summits to give colleagues the opportunity to nominate and then select a global portfolio of gift recipients. These 35-plus nonprofits represent a diverse group of local, national, and international organizations that support Black communities across a wide range of issues. MBN colleagues have strong connections to each organization through volunteering, board service, being a beneficiary, or seeing them make a difference in their local communities.
This initiative reflects McKinsey’s ongoing commitment to support nonprofits that are addressing some of the world’s most pressing societal challenges. While we know that our contributions are modest given the scale of this problem, we hope that they will be catalytic and help accelerate impact in local communities. During the next phase of this effort, we plan to pair these donations with volunteers to further support the important efforts of organizations at the frontlines of combating racism and extend the impact of these donations with pro bono support for a subset of these organizations.
