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One of the wealthiest women in the world just finished giving out $4 billion, and she’s asking others to follow her example.
MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon AMZN, +0.26% founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, announced in a Medium post Tuesday that she had handed out $4,158,500,000 in monetary gifts to 384 groups across the U.S. and in Puerto Rico over the past four months.
Some recipients of the money are organizations helping people meet immediate basic needs, such as food pantries and emergency relief funds. Others are working to end “long-term systemic inequities,” Scott wrote.
All of the groups, she said, are worthy of more attention, because the pandemic has been a “wrecking ball” in the lives of already-struggling Americans, with women, people of color and people living in poverty especially hard hit.
“Meanwhile, it has substantially increased the wealth of billionaires,” Scott added.
Indeed, Scott’s former husband has seen his fortune swell by an estimated $71.4 billion during the coronavirus pandemic as shoppers stuck at home have flocked to Amazon. Bezos, who is sometimes criticized for the relatively slower pace of his philanthropic giving, recently announced $791 million in grants to groups fighting climate change. In October, he unveiled a free preschool for low-income students — the first in a nationwide network — that will be funded by the Day One Fund, a philanthropic initiative that the couple started when they were still married.
Scott, who signed the Giving Pledge in 2019, has had a busy year of philanthropy. She announced in July that she had donated $1.7 billion since her July 2019 divorce from Bezos. Much of that money went to nonprofits working to solve inequities related to race, gender and LGBTQ+ status.
Scott’s net worth fluctuates based on the value of Amazon stock. In September she was declared the richest woman in the world after tech stocks surged and her estimated wealth grew to roughly $68 billion.
Scott’s most recent round of funding went to groups including local chapters of Easterseals — a national nonprofit that works on behalf of people with disabilities — as well as local branches of Goodwill, United Way and the YMCA.
Scott said her fast-paced give-away was meant to spark hope during a dark time.
“If you’re craving a way to use your time, voice, or money to help others at the end of this difficult year, I highly recommend a gift to one of the thousands of organizations doing remarkable work all across the country,” Scott wrote. “Every one of them could benefit from more resources to share with the communities they’re serving. And the hope you feed with your gift is likely to feed your own.”
