MacKenzie Scott announces new philanthropy gifts of $2.7 billion
MacKenzie Scott, one of the world's wealthiest women, announced Tuesday a new round of large charitable donations totaling $2.7 billion for educational, community and other nonprofit organizations.
The ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who has pledged to give away the bulk of her fortune from their divorce settlement, said in a blog post she was donating to "286 high-impact organizations in categories and communities that have been historically underfunded and overlooked."
The announcement marked the third round of big donations from Scott, whose fortune is estimated at some $59 billion and who previously gave some $6 billion to hundreds of groups and institutions.
Scott, who has eschewed the idea of creating a foundation and instead has relied on a team of advisers to identify grantees, said the effort is motivated by a desire to address growing inequalities.
"People struggling against inequities deserve center stage in stories about change they are creating," Scott wrote on Medium.
She said she and her team "are all attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change. In this effort, we are governed by a humbling belief that it would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands, and that the solutions are best designed and implemented by others."
The unrestricted grants will go to a wide range of organizations in education, the arts, social action, child advocacy and other causes.
They include Amarillo College in Texas, the Apollo Theater in New York, the Children's Defense Fund, Decolonizing Wealth Project, Filantropia Puerto Rico, Inner-City Muslim Action Network, Jazz at Lincoln Center, PEN America Writers' Emergency Fund and Ubuntu Pathways.