Fort Washakie, WY – The Wind River Development Fund (WRDF) announced today that it received a $3 million donation from MacKenzie Scott’s foundation, Yield Giving. The unrestricted donation represents the largest, single philanthropic gift in WRDF’s 23-year history.

The Wind River Development Fund is a Native-led nonprofit located in Fort Washakie, WY. The organization focuses on economic development and supporting entrepreneurs who want to start new businesses or grow their existing businesses. WRDF offers market-competitive loan products, business planning, financial coaching, and homeowners education programs.

“We were so surprised to hear of this amazing gift from Yield Giving,” stated Paul F. Huberty, Executive Director of the Wind River Development Fund. “This gift comes at an exciting inflection point for our organization with the recent announcement that WRDF is one of six organizations in the country to be awarded an EDA Recompete grant.”

In August 2024, the Economic Development Administration announced that the Wind River Development Fund and its four co-applicants will be awarded a $36.1 million Recompete grant to implement economic development projects on the Wind River Indian Reservation. WRDF’s grant is the second largest award among the six Recompete recipients.

Established by MacKenzie Scott to share a financial fortune created through the effort of countless people, Yield Giving is named after a belief in adding value by giving up control. In an essay posted on the Yield Giving website, MacKenzie Scott shared, “I began work to complete my pledge with the belief that my life had yielded two assets that could be of particular value to others: the money these systems helped deliver to me, and a conviction that people who have experience with inequities are the ones best equipped to design solutions.”

Lisa Wagner, WRDF’s Chief Financial Officer, said, “This gift provides us with the additional financial flexibility to implement strategic initiatives on the Reservation. We are very grateful for MacKenzie Scott’s vision and financial support of the Wind River Development Fund.”

Published by The Chronicle of Philanthropy

In an old ranch house that serves as the headquarters of the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative, Jason Baldes greets federal officials and others with doughnuts and coffee. It is his second stop of the day: Early that morning, he drove out to the herd just west of Morton, Wyo., to feed formula to a 3-month-old bison calf whose mother had died.

Baldes, the charity’s executive director and a member of the Eastern Shoshone tribe, has been working to bring back bison since 2006. His goal is to reacquire thousands of acres of private lands within the reservation that were sold long ago so that bison can roam a huge area and be managed as wildlife. He wants his people and the Northern Arapaho tribe with whom they share this land to be able to hunt bison and harvest a traditional and healthier food source than the cattle that predominate on these sagebrush plains. He also hopes to attract tourists driving to Yellowstone and bolster the reservation’s struggling economy.

Hand-feeding the calf didn’t exactly fit the wildlife narrative. But when a film crew from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom zeroed in on a previous calf feeding a few weeks earlier, Baldes didn’t object.

“Once they found him, he stole the show,” Baldes tells the group of visitors. “If he can raise money to buy land back for us, that’s a pretty good way to have him kick in his fair share.”

In August, Baldes learned that the charity he founded less than two years ago would receive its largest grant yet, $9.8 million from the federal Economic Development Administration, to build a new museum and headquarters here.