MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire philanthropist has made her largest ever publicly disclosed donation. She gave Habitat for Humanity the princely sum of $436 million. This is the largest publicly declared donation by her since she pledged to give away most of her wealth during her lifetime. She is the fastest donor in the giving away of her fortune. Other billionaires who have also signed the Giving Pledge include tech billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates and Elon Musk and financial wizard Warren Buffet.
The ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledged to give away most of her wealth, in 2019. According to real-time estimates by Forbes, MacKenzie Scott’s fortune is 49.4 billion. She has already donated $9.6 billion in less than two years according to the same outlet.
The outlet also compared it with the donations by her ex-Bezos. Scott has reportedly given away four times more than the Amazon founder donated in his lifetime. She received 25% of Bezos’ stake in Amazon, after their divorce in 2019.
In December MacKenzie Scott wrote in a blog post that stated that she would no longer include any amounts of that she had “donated since my prior posts.” She wanted to let each “incredible team speak for themselves first if they choose to.” She added that she hoped that the media would focus on their contributions rather than hers, if they chose to highlight her donation.
In a press release Habitat for Humanity said that the “incredibly generous gift” would help them to substantially “increase capacity and implement programs that would create a ripple effect as they impact communities across generations.
CEO Jonathan Reckford who called MacKenzie Scott’s donation a “tremendous gift” also said that the donation had allowed the organization to “meaningfully advocate for the systemic and societal changes” that are necessary so that there is an improvement in equitable access to affordable housing.”
MacKenzie Scott got married to Dan Jewett in 2021. He is a science teacher at Lakeside School in Seattle. MacKenzie Scott and Jeff Bezos’ children study in the same school.
(Photo: Twitter)
