Over the past four months, Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife MacKenzie Scott has donated over $4BN to hundreds of aid organizations and charities, including food banks fighting the pandemic’s impact. Scott has a personal net worth of more than $60BN, making her the 18th richest person globally. Last year, she vowed to give away much of her wealth after her divorce settlement with Bezos.
In July, Scott announced that she had donated $1.7BN to 116 charities. She then decided to “fast-track” her donations. In these last four months, she has given an additional $4.15BN to 384 organizations across the US and Puerto Rico, bringing her total contributions this year to $6BN.
Scott wrote in a blog post:
This pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling. Economic losses and health outcomes alike have been worse for women, people of color, and for people living in poverty. Meanwhile, it has substantially increased the wealth of billionaires.
Bezos, who was married to Scott for 26 years, is the world’s wealthiest person. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Benzos’s fortune before the pandemic was estimated at $113BN, and now it has moved up to around $185BN.
Scott took a “data-driven” approach to select the receivers of donations. Her team mainly focused on “those operating in communities facing high projected food insecurity, high measures of racial inequity, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital.”
Some of her donations targeted basic needs, such as emergency relief funds, food banks, and support for the most vulnerable. Others were aimed at long-term issues that the pandemic has worsened, including debt relief, legal defense funds, civil rights groups, employment training, and education for “historically marginalized and underserved people.”
Overall, her team looked at 6,490 organizations and picked out 822 for “deeper research.” Scott’s list of organizations to receive funds includes Meals on Wheels, the YMCA, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Global Fund for Women.
Last year, Scott committed to the Giving Pledge Initiative, set up by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Edward Buffett, which encourages exceptionally wealthy people to donate a large share of their wealth to charitable causes.
The Gates have committed $305M towards Covid-19 vaccines and diagnostic development, as well as $3.7M for Covid-19 relief efforts. Other significant donations made during the pandemic include:
- In March, celebrity Rihanna donated $5M to Covid-19 relief efforts through her Clara Lionel Foundation.
- In April, the co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, announced he was moving 28% of his wealth ($1BN) to Covid-19 relief efforts and other causes.
- In April, Estée Lauder donated $2M to Covid-19 relief efforts to “Doctors Without Borders,” also known as Médecins Sans Frontières – to support profoundly impacted and under-resourced countries with fighting the spread of Covid-19.
- In June, basketball legend Michael Jordan announced he would donate $100M to Black Lives Matter and other social causes over the next ten years.
- In August, UK rapper Stormzy donated £500,000 to fund educational scholarships for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
- In February, Bezos said he’s contributing $10 billion to fight climate change through his philanthropic project called “the Bezos Earth Fund.” In November, Bezos announced the first of those grants, giving out nearly $800M to sixteen groups.
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