Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and his wife Patty Quillin announced on Wednesday that they are donating $120 million to the United Negro College Fund and two historically black colleges in response to the death of George Floyd. According to Hastings, “We wanted to do our part to draw attention, in this case, to the HBCU’s 150 years of resilience, of educating young Black people and the stories not well understood in the white community.”
“The times are the most stressed, the most painful, that we’ve ever seen in our lives,” said Hastings, according to a report by NBC News. “But out of that pain can come some opportunity, too. And maybe this will be the moment things change.”
The CEO and his wife will donate $40 million to the United Negro College Fund, and $40 million each to two historically Black colleges in Atlanta, Georgia, Spelman College and Morehouse College, to go toward student scholarships.
“We wanted to do our part to draw attention, in this case, to the HBCU’s 150 years of resilience, of educating young Black people and the stories not well understood in the white community,” said Hastings.
The report added that Hastings, who has called this donation “the biggest gift we’ve ever given,” has been involved in education reform since the late 1990s with his wife, and that the couple are major donors to the education reform movement.
The CEO and his wife are also building a 2,100-acre luxury ranch near the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, which will serve as a foundation and training ground for American public school teachers, according to a report by Recode.
In 2016, Hastings announced the creation of a $100 million philanthropic education fund — called The Hastings Fund — at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
“What’s great about Silicon Valley Community Foundation is they make it so easy to be a donor,” he said. “And they provide as much advice as you want both on structure and on particular donations.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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