Former wife of Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Scott has just announced the project that she has been working on in the past couple of months. Scott has donated $4.1 billion to numerous charities over the past four months.
“A wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling”
MacKenzie Scott donated $1.68 billion last July to 116 organizations last July, but after the damage the pandemic has done, she wanted to do more. With a team of advisers, Scott looked for more organizations to help out. She describes the pandemic as "a wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling" and even says that the pandemic "has substantially increased the wealth of billionaires" in her announcement.
Her research has been extensive over the past months, figuring out which organizations have made substantial progress and which ones are in areas of high food insecurity, racial inequity and poverty. Scott and her team narrowed it down to 384 organizations to share the $4,158,500,000 in donations with.
Some of the Beneficiaries
Of the 384 organizations, 46 are chapters of United Way which gives support to those in need of education, health, and finances. She also donated to Goodwill Industries International, which provides proper training for those looking for jobs.
Scott has also given support to civil rights organizations, such as the Global Fund for Women, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Lambda Legal, Pride Foundation, and the Hispanic Federation.
In terms of COVID-19 relief, the beneficiaries includes the Center for Disaster Philanthropy Covid-19 Response Fund.
To support places with high food insecurity, Scott has donated to over 40 food banks and over 30 Meals on Wheels services.
She also donated to over 30 high education institutions. These include tribal colleges like Navajo Technical University and historically black schools like Morgan State University, which received its highest donation yet, a $40 million gift.
