In 2019, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott pledged to give her huge fortune to charity. With an endless array of donations, Scott has kept his word and given nearly $19.3 billion to more than 2,450 different nonprofits over the past five years.
While Scott's charities include a variety of causes from education to health care, the most recent batch of donations, totaling $2 billion, has focused on economic and financial welfare. About 75 percent of grantees support areas such as affordable housing, job stability and child development and provide “financial counseling, business training and low-interest loans,” Scott said in a Dec. 18 update on his philanthropic Yield Giving website. The remaining 25 percent support welfare in other ways, such as conservation of natural resources or human rights work, according to the philanthropist.
Scott, 54, is one of the richest women in the world with an estimated net worth of $40.7 billion. Her wealth primarily comes from shares in Amazon (AMZN), the technology company founded by her ex-husband Jeff Bezos. The philanthropist currently owns 139 million Amazon shares after selling 45 million shares worth $8 billion in September.
Scott's philanthropic approach over the years has been distinguished by Scott's trust-based giving, which provides nonprofit organizations with unrestricted gifts with minimal reporting requirements. Scott also empowers organizations to decide when and how they share information about their gifts—Scott's Yield Giving website lists nearly 600 gifts that don't include a dollar amount but instead read: “Disclosure delayed to benefit the recipient.”
Scott is also a repeat contributor. About a dozen recipients of his donations in 2024 had previously received money from the philanthropist, while other nonprofits—such as Medical Debt Relief and the education-focused CAMFED International—received their third donation from Scott this year.
“I am amazed by this latest gift from MacKenzie Scott,” said Allison Sesso, Undue Medical Debt's CEO and president, in a statement announcing the new $50 million gift following a previous gift of $80 million still offered in 2020 and 2022. “Unrestricted giving, certainly of this magnitude, gives nonprofits the space to take risks to tackle modern, complex issues and demonstrate why we are subject matter experts when it comes to the causes we lead,” added Sesso.
Where are the donations?
Scott's latest contributions include some of his biggest to date. The two largest gifts in 2024, $65 million each, were given to Enterprise Community Partners and Local Initiatives Support Corporation, which work to strengthen affordable housing and community support. The third largest gift of $60 million went to the Self-Help Ventures Fund, a nonprofit loan fund.
As Scott continues to establish himself as one of the most prominent figures in philanthropy, his philanthropy has included an exploration of grantmaking. His latest $2 billion donation, for example, comes on the heels of $640 million released in March to 361 nonprofits through an open call run by Lever for Change, an organization that hosts philanthropic challenges.
Now, Scott is looking to invest in for-profit solutions to the same challenges he has been using philanthropy to advance. According to Yield Giving, his investment team is looking at companies that focus on things like affordable housing, women's health forums and culturally sensitive teletherapy. Using these investments—instead of Scott's bank account or stock portfolio, “the money can help solve these problems twice,” Scott said.
