Posted on 12/16/20
| News Source: FOX Business
MacKenzie Scott, one of the world's richest women, has donated $4.2 billion to nearly 400 charity organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a blog post this week, the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos wrote that she was inspired to "accelerate [her] 2020 giving through immediate support to people suffering the economic effects of the crisis."
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Scott's team -- which sought the perspectives of hundreds of field experts, funders, non-profit leaders, and volunteers -- gave special attention to organizations operating in communities that are experiencing or will face high food insecurity, racial inequality, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital.
"The result over the last four months has been $4,158,500,000 in gifts to 384 organizations across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington D.C," wrote Scott.
In total, she looked at 6,490 groups and did a deeper dive on 822 of them, listing in her post the organizations that received funds.
Following up on the commitment I made last year to give away the majority of my wealth in my lifetime: https://t.co/Ocb8eU5UR1. (Note my Medium account is under my new last name -- changed back to middle name I grew up with, after my grandfather Scott.)
— MacKenzie Scott (@mackenziescott) July 28, 2020
"These 384 carefully selected teams have dedicated their lives to helping others, working and volunteering and serving real people face-to-face at bedsides and tables, in prisons and courtrooms and classrooms, on streets and hospital wards and hotlines and frontlines of all types and sizes, day after day after day," Scott continued.
The philanthropist's move marks her second major charitable contribution of the year. She donated $1.7 billion to 166 organizations -- including historically Black colleges and universities -- in July.
Scott committed to Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates' Giving Pledge initiative in 2019, which funds charitable causes.
She is now the world's 18th richest person, with a net worth of $60.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.