NEW YORK — One of the most storied American philanthropies is teaming up with the internet’s biggest creator to instill young people with a concern for what they call the world’s “most vulnerable” populations.
Beast Philanthropy, the charitable organization started by MrBeast founder Jimmy Donaldson, and the Rockefeller Foundation announced a strategic partnership Monday. The idea is to pair Donaldson’s unique ability to capture youth attention spans with the foundation’s 112-year history of using its resources and technology to tackle global problems.
Speaking together ahead of a Nov. 21 video shoot at MrBeast’s Greenville, North Carolina, studio, the partners complimented the respective strengths they hope to exchange with each other.
“I’ve spent my entire life making YouTube videos. They’ve spent their entire lives helping people,” Donaldson told The Associated Press. “Obviously, they have a team who’s way more experienced than me in helping people, but being able to pull on their knowledge and wisdom is amazing.”
“I just want to download their brains into our team’s brains,” he added.
Dr. Rajiv Shah, the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, said the philanthropic sector has long failed to capture “the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of young people.” He said MrBeast can help them engage young people, inspire hope and communicate their work more accessibly.
Most people have a natural desire to help others, according to Shah, but we teach ourselves that world problems are “too big and too complicated” to solve. He pointed to MrBeast’s video in Zambia, where they provided a village with solar-powered electricity and clean water wells.
“What Jimmy’s already done is show that you can change that dramatically,” Shah said. “If we can get people believing that they can make a difference through this collaboration, we will have achieved something really unique and really special.”
The move signals Donaldson’s continued attempts to evolve an organization with sprawling interests that include an entertainment studio, food brands, his own James Patterson book deal and, most recently, a limited time theme park in Saudi Arabia. He brought on venture capitalist Jeff Housenbold as CEO last year and then hired more new executives as a series of controversies threatened his ambitions ahead of his Amazon Prime reality game show ‘s release.
It’s an unlikely marriage to some. The Rockefeller Foundation is a pillar of civil society established with wealth amassed by the 19th-century oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller during the Gilded Age whereas the 27-year-old Donaldson represents the 21st century “influencer” economy where entire media empires can emerge from content creators’ viral stunts and the online buz