Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott reveals another $2 billion in donations in 2024
NEW YORK– Billionaire author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott acknowledged another $2 billion in donations in a blog post on Wednesday, bringing the total she has given away since 2019 to $19.2 billion.
Scott also announced that she has instructed advisors to invest her money in “mission-related ventures,” rather than “withdrawing money from a bank account or stock portfolio that increases the wealth and influence of leaders who already have it.”
It’s the first time Scott has shared her approach to managing her wealth, most of which comes from Amazon stock she received when she divorced the company’s founder, Jeff Bezos. Forbes estimates her current net worth at $31.7 billion, even after giving her money away for five years.
Announcing the gifts on her Yield Giving website, Scott reflected on the meaning of “investing,” writing that it “seems to have undergone a kind of semantic atrophy. On the list of big, beautiful, original definitions? a useful purpose. To grant rights.
Scott, who does not comment on her donations beyond a rare post on her website, has shaken up the nonprofit sector with her embrace of “trust-based philanthropy,” by large subsidies without obligations to more than 2,450 nonprofit organizations.
In 2024, she also made repeated donations to various organizations – something of a new development in her giving, which has set the bar high for how much and how quickly megadonors can give. Two organizations, CAMFED, which supports girls’ education in Africa, and Undue Medical Debt, formerly called RIP Medical Debt, each received a third donation from Scott this year.
Grantees say that when Scott’s team notifies them of grants, they say they don’t expect additional support. So it was a surprise to Shaun Donovan, CEO of the affordable housing organization Enterprise Community Partners, when he received the news of a second, large donation.
“I was getting my luggage out of security at LaGuardia Airport and my phone rang and I was told that MacKenzie Scott was going to award us another $65 million,” Donovan said in an interview in November.
His organization had received $50 million from Scott in 2020, making them one of the nonprofits that received the most funding from Scott, based on grant data made public on Giving proceeds. About 500 organizations have not disclosed the amount of funding they received from Scott.
“We didn’t expect their second gift. Every time they award this funding, they are very clear that organizations should not expect this,” Donovan said, and his advice is: “Really treat it that way. Do not use it for regular operating expenses. Don’t use it for things that will create a cliff or hole in your organization’s budget.”
This year was already a high point for Scott’s donations as it was the first time she awarded grants through an application process. In March, she announced the recipients of one “open call” for applications from non-profit organizations. She surprised the recipients by awarding more money to more organizations than she initially promised $640 million to more than 360 nonprofit organizations.
In one measure of demand for the large and unlimited subsidies it makes, 6,353 nonprofits applied through the non-profit organization Lever for Change, which organized the “open call” for Scott. Ultimately, 279 nonprofits received $2 million, while 82 organizations received $1 million each. Organizations have previously indicated that they have responded to this questions from an anonymous donor who turned out to be Scott or who had just received an email or cold call without any notification.
The fact that its grants are unrestricted, meaning nonprofits can use them however they want to further their charitable cause, is part of what makes them so valuable, Donovan said. Five years after her philanthropic blitz, he said it is now possible to see her impact across entire sectors.
“The scale of these donations has transformed not just individual organizations, but entire areas like affordable housing,” he said.
___
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits is supported by the AP’s partnership with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropic coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.