MrBeast has hit back at criticism over his nearly $10m investment in a Ghanaian cocoa community after an X user questioned why the YouTube star was spending so heavily overseas while poverty remains high in his home city of Greenville, North Carolina.
The online exchange has pushed Donaldson’s latest philanthropic venture into a wider debate over where wealthy donors should direct their money. But behind the controversy is a much broader five-year intervention designed to tackle education, nutrition, farmer livelihoods and child labour across cocoa-growing communities in Ghana’s Eastern Region.
Criticizing Ghana’s spending
The dispute followed the unveiling of Abna Dakwa Village, a development reported to have cost nearly $10m and equipped with educational, health, water and livelihood infrastructure.
Newsweek reported that one X user questioned why Donaldson did not ‘do more for his hometown of Greenville, North Carolina’, citing the city’s high poverty rate.
That concern rests on a real economic statistic. US Census Bureau data shows that 24.6 percent of Greenville residents lived below the poverty line during the 2020–2024 period.
MrBeast points to US work
Donaldson responded directly, writing: ‘I literally do. I have a 501c non profit’, before pointing to tens of millions of meals distributed in America, including in his local community.
His defence is supported by figures published by Beast Philanthropy. The organisation says its Beast Pantry, founded in Greenville in late 2020, has delivered more than 48.4m meals and distributed more than 60m pounds of food.
It now reaches more than 20 communities across eastern North Carolina.
Ghana project stretches beyond village
The Ghana intervention is substantially larger than the development at the centre of the social-media argument.
Beast Philanthropy says its Ghana Child Labour Initiative has 10,167 direct beneficiaries and is structured around 11 cocoa communities.
Five communities are now fully live, while four more are entering the next phase of the programme and two remain scheduled for later rollout.
Measures include school reconstruction, boreholes, sanitation, meals, savings groups and child-labour monitoring.
The intervention comes as Ghana’s cocoa economy faces wider pressure. Africa Briefing has reported on concerns among cocoa farmers over new land-use restrictions and the continuing challenge of maintaining viable livelihoods in one of the country’s most important industries.
School meals target deeper pressures
A separate partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation strengthens the programme’s food-security component.
Over five years, Beast Philanthropy and The Rockefeller Foundation plan to develop regenerative school-meal programmes in Ghana and Kenya.
In Ghana, the programme begins with 10 schools across nine Eastern Region communities, sourcing food partly through local agricultural systems.
The strategy reflects the connection between household poverty and child labour. Africa Briefing reporting on cocoa child labour has documented the persistence of hazardous work among children in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire despite years of government and industry intervention.
The immediate controversy asks whether Donaldson should devote more resources to problems at home.
For Ghana, however, the more consequential test will be what remains after the publicity fades: functioning schools, reliable meals, stronger farmer incomes and demonstrable reductions in child labour.
That question is especially relevant as Ghana continues adjusting cocoa prices and sector financing following sharp movements in global markets.
Beast Philanthropy says its model is intended to move progressively towards local ownership rather than permanent dependence on outside funding.
