MrBeast, Rockefeller Foundation team to spark youth philanthropy, fight child labor

NEW YORK– One of America’s most renowned philanthropies is teaming up with the Internet’s biggest creator to inspire young people to care about what they call the world’s “most vulnerable” populations.

Beast Philanthropy, the charitable organization created by MrBeast founder Jimmy Donaldson, and the Rockefeller Foundation announced a strategic partnership on Monday. The idea is to combine Donaldson’s unique ability to capture the attention of young people with the foundation’s 112 years of experience using its resources and technology to tackle global issues.

Speaking together ahead of a video shoot on Nov. 21 at MrBeast studio in Greenville, North Carolina, the partners complimented the respective strengths they hope to exchange with each other.

“I’ve spent my whole life making YouTube videos. They’ve spent their whole lives helping people,” Donaldson told the Associated Press. “Obviously they have a much more experienced team than I have in helping people, but to be able to leverage their knowledge and wisdom is incredible.”

“I just want to download their brains into our team’s,” he added.

Dr. Rajiv Shah, 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 in a more accessible way.

Most people have a natural desire to help others, Shah says, but we ourselves learn that the world’s problems are “too big and too complicated” to solve. He brought up MrBeast’s video in Zambia, where they provided a village with solar electricity and clean water wells.

“What Jimmy has already done is show that you can change this dramatically,” Shah said. “If we can convince people that they can make a difference through this collaboration, we will have achieved something truly unique and truly special.”

The move speaks to Donaldson’s continued attempts to scale an organization with sprawling interests that include an entertainment studio, food brands, his own book deal with James Patterson and, most recently, a limited-run theme park in Saudi Arabia. It recruited venture capitalist Jeff Housenbold as CEO last year, then hired more new executives as a series of controversies threatened its ambitions ahead of the release of its Amazon Prime reality game.

It’s an unlikely marriage for some. The Rockefeller Foundation is a pillar of civil society established on the wealth amassed by 19th-century oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller during the Gilded Age, while Donaldson, 27, represents the 21st-century “influencer” economy, where entire media empires can emerge from the viral stunts of content creators and the online buzz they generate.

Shah acknowledged that the Rockefeller Foundation rarely enters into partnerships with corporations. But he said spending time with Donaldson and his mother, as well as watching his philanthropically-minded videos, was a testament to the YouTube megastar’s “personal commitment to philanthropy” and the “sense of excitement you can get when helping others.”

Shah also found a natural synergy between the MrBeast team’s focus on data and Rockefeller’s desire to make philanthropy “results-driven and science-based.” Donaldson’s obsession with audience metrics is well-documented, and the YouTube page is known for its meticulous editing to ensure fans not only click on thumbnails, but watch videos all the way through.

“We bring to these efforts innovation, a sense of purpose and a deep commitment to measuring results. And, over time, it has helped literally hundreds of millions of people escape poverty, hunger and disease,” Shah said. “I just think Jimmy, the business he’s built and the perspective he brings, is totally consistent with that.”

The exact problems they plan to solve together are still being resolved and there is no shared grant award to be announced yet. But Shah mentioned that the Rockefeller Foundation has a long history of fighting childhood hunger and pointed to Beast Philanthropy’s video about a school lunch program.

But they have already started to fight against child labor in the cocoa industry.

Through his snack company, Feastables, Donaldson says he wants to prove that chocolate can be profitable without resorting to child labor on cocoa plantations. He hopes to provide farmers with a living income, create stable economic conditions so children can go to school instead of the farm, and use his YouTube channel to rally consumers around fair trade practices.

The Rockefeller Foundation consulted MrBeast on “how they should proceed with the case study,” according to Donaldson. To that end, the two organizations say they will travel to Ghana early next year to “learn from each other’s work in development, community-led change and global storytelling.”

Donaldson said he wants to use his influence to inspire young people to “do good, volunteer, donate and care about these projects.” But he hopes the Rockefeller Foundation can help him be more effective and bring about “real, lasting change.” He said it made no sense to him to “make the same mistakes they’ve made a billion times.”

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