MacKenzie Scott has generously given away an astonishing $2.7 billion in a bid to decrease the wealth gap.
In a post made on Medium on Tuesday, June 15, entitled "Seeding by Ceding", the 51-year-old ex-wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced that she donated to a total of 286 philanthropic organizations in the United States.
Scott wrote that she focused her donations on higher education, groups bridging divides through interfaith support, arts and culture, anti-poverty organizations led by people of color, and grassroots groups supporting local communities.
She stated: "People struggling against inequities deserve center stage in stories about the change they are creating. This is equally -perhaps especially- true when their work is funded by wealth.
"Any wealth is a product of a collective effort that included them. The social structures that inflate wealth present obstacles to them. And despite those obstacles, they are providing solutions that benefit us all."
She added:
"Because we believe that teams with experience on the front lines of challenges will know best how to put the money to good use, we encouraged them to spend it however they choose.
"We 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."
Although Scott did not disclose the exact sum she donated to each separate organization, Forbes estimates that, if the grants were equal in size, each of the 286 organizations would have received approximately $10 million apiece.
However, the Children’s Defense Fund claimed in a press statement they received $20 million from Scott, which they called "the largest single contribution" in the non-profit's history.
Other recipients include Give Directly; which gives cash to the poor in Africa, DonorsChoose; a nonprofit allowing teachers to crowdfund for classroom supplies, and The Decolonizing Wealth Project, which redistributes wealth to people of color.
Indeed, Scott is a signee of the Giving Pledge; a drive that pushes the world's richest individuals to donate half their fortunes to charitable causes during their lifetimes or after their deaths.
This is the third major round of Scott's giving efforts, with Forbes reporting that she already gave away $6 billion in 2020 to 500 other charitable organizations.
But Scott is still far from being out of pocket. The above publication calculates that she's now worth approximately $57 billion as of 10:30 AM eastern time - making her the 22nd richest person in the world.
This comes after ProPublica reported that 57-year-old Bezos (who is due to resign as the CEO of Amazon later this year) is currently under investigation after IRS documents revealed he paid almost no income tax.
