MrBeast has partnered with the Rockefellers

I had to read this headline twice you know.

Beast Philanthropy - the charitable arm of the world's biggest YouTuber - has just announced a strategic partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation.

Check out the announcement here →

Yes, that Rockefeller Foundation.

The one that's been around for 112 years.

The one built on 19th-century oil wealth.

The one that helped eradicate hookworm, funded the development of penicillin, and basically invented modern philanthropy as we know it.

And they've just teamed up with a guy who got famous for counting to 100,000 in a single video.

What a time to be alive.

I think this partnership makes way more sense than it first appears.

The Rockefeller Foundation has spent over a century tackling massive global challenges. They've invested more than a billion dollars in connecting people to electricity, making nutritious school meals universal, and responding to health threats. Their track record is genuinely incredible.

But they have a problem.

Dr Rajiv Shah, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, admitted it himself: the philanthropic sector has historically struggled to capture "the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of young people."

And that's where Jimmy Donaldson comes in.

Nearly 4 billion people belong to Gen Z and Gen Alpha - that's almost half of humanity. They spend 7 to 9 hours a day on screens. And let’s be honest, they trust creators like MrBeast more than governments, brands, and institutions.

So if you're a 112-year-old foundation trying to engage the next generation of changemakers, partnering with a guy who has 900 million followers is probably the smartest move you could make.

The unlikely pairing

There's something genuinely delightful about this collaboration.

You've got the Rockefeller Foundation - all storied legacy, boardrooms, and decades of development expertise - joining forces with a creator whose rise to fame involved burying himself alive, spending 50 hours in solitary confinement, and giving away islands to random strangers.

But beneath the stunts, Beast Philanthropy has actually been doing serious work.

They've provided millions of meals to families facing food insecurity in America. They've built homes and schools across Africa and Latin America. Their #TeamWater initiative with WaterAid raised $40 million to bring clean water to 2 million people.

That's real impact.

Jimmy put it simply: "I've spent my entire life making YouTube videos. They've spent their entire lives helping people. 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."

Then he added: "I just want to download their brains into our team's brains."

Which is such a perfectly MrBeast way of describing institutional knowledge transfer.

The partnership will kick off with a trip to Ghana in early 2026, where both teams will learn from each other's work in development, community-led change, and global storytelling.

There's already overlap - Beast Philanthropy is working to help eradicate child labour in the cocoa industry, starting in Ghana. Jimmy's snack company Feastables is trying to prove that chocolate production can be profitable without relying on child labour, by ensuring living incomes for farmers.

Dr Shah noted that the Rockefeller Foundation rarely engages in partnerships like this. But spending time with Jimmy and his mother, alongside observing his philanthropically-minded videos, convinced him of the "personal commitment to philanthropy" and the "sense of enthusiasm one can experience when you help others."

He also identified a natural synergy in the MrBeast team's data-driven approach, which aligns with Rockefeller's desire for "results-oriented and science-based" philanthropy.

The bigger picture

Dr Shah made an interesting observation about why this matters beyond the immediate partnership.

Most people inherently want to help, he said, but they often perceive global problems as "too big and too complicated" to solve. They feel powerless, so they disengage.

But when MrBeast filmed a video in Zambia showing solar-powered electricity and clean water wells being installed in a village, something shifted.

Suddenly these enormous, abstract problems felt solvable. Tangible. Real.

"If we can get people believing that they can make a difference through this collaboration," Shah concluded, "we will have achieved something really unique and really special."

What this tells us

This partnership is another data point in a trend we've been tracking for a while now.

The old institutions - whether that's media companies, sports leagues, or century-old foundations - are realising they need creators to reach audiences they can no longer access on their own.

Netflix needs MrBeast. The BBC needs creators. The Rockefeller Foundation needs Beast Philanthropy.

Not because these institutions aren't doing valuable work.

They absolutely are.

But because attention has fundamentally shifted, and the people who command that attention are no longer sitting in traditional seats of power.

They're in studios in Greenville, North Carolina, figuring out how to download 112 years of philanthropic wisdom into their team's brains.

And honestly my friends?

That might be exactly what the world needs right now.

Remember, the creator mindset is all you need to grow 🌱

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