MacKenzie Scott, Amazon founder's ex-wife, reveals another US$2 billion in donations in 2024

Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, March 4, 2018, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

NEW YORK — Billionaire author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott acknowledged another US$2 billion in donations in a blog post on Wednesday, bringing the total she’s given away since 2019 to US$19.2 billion.

She also revealed new information about how she was managing her wealth, saying she had directed advisors to invest her funds into “mission-aligned ventures.” Most of the grants she made in 2024, she said, went to bolstering economic security and opportunities..

“I’ve asked the investment team helping me manage the assets I’m working to give away to source funds and companies focused on for-profit solutions to these challenges,” Scott wrote. That is in contrast to “withdrawing funds from a bank account, or from a stock portfolio that increases the wealth and influence of leaders who already have it.”

Most of Scott's wealth comes from shares of Amazon that she received when she divorced the company’s founder, Jeff Bezos. Forbes estimates her current wealth to be US$31.7 billion, even after giving away her money for five years.

Gabrielle Fitzgerald, founder and CEO of The Panorama Group, has researched Scott's giving and provided advice and support for nonprofits who have received Scott's gifts. She said she sees a growing focus in Scott's giving on issues of poverty.

“She is creating an amazing role model for philanthropists, although I don’t see very many that have followed her role modeling," Fitzgerald said. "But it really shows that it’s easy to give away a lot of money to good groups.”

In announcing the gifts on her Yield Giving website, Scott mulled over the meaning of “investing,” writing that it "seems to have undergone a kind of semantic shriveling. On the list of its big, beautiful, original definitions? To devote resources for a useful purpose. To endow with rights. To clothe.”

Scott, who does not comment on her giving beyond the rare post on her website, has shaken up the nonprofit sector with her embrace of “trust-based philanthropy,” providing big grants with no strings attached to over 2,450 nonprofits.

In 2024, she also gave repeat gifts to several organizations — something of a new development in her giving, which has set a high bar for how much and how fast megadonors can give. Two organizations, CAMFED, which supports girls education in Africa, and Undue Medical Debt, which was formerly called RIP Medical Debt, both got third donations from Scott this year.

Grantees say that when Scott's team notifies them of grants they say not to expect additional support. So it was a surprise for Shaun Donovan, CEO of the affordable housing organization Enterprise Community Partners, when he got the news of a second, major donation.

“I was taking my luggage off the security screener at LaGuardia Airport and my phone rang and I was told that MacKenzie Scott was awarding us another US$65 million,” Donovan said in an interview in November.

His organization had received US$50 million from Scott in 2020, making them one of the nonprofits that has received the most funding from Scott, based on grant data made public on Yield Giving. About 500 organizations have not disclosed the amount of funding they've received from Scott.

“We were not expecting their second gift. Every time they award this funding, they’re very clear that organizations should not expect it,” Donovan said, adding his advice is, “Really treat it that way. Don’t use it for regular operating expenses. Don’t use it for things that will create a cliff or a hole in your budget for your organization.”

This year was already a standout in Scott's giving because it was the first time that she awarded grants through an application process. In March, she announced the recipients of an “open call” for applications from nonprofits. She surprised recipients by awarding more money to more organizations than she had initially promised, committing US$640 million to more than 360 nonprofits.

In one measure of the demand for the large and unrestricted grants she makes, 6,353 nonprofits applied through the nonprofit Lever for Change, which ran the “open call” for Scott. Ultimately, 279 nonprofits were awarded US$2 million, while 82 organizations received US$1 million each. Previously, organizations have said they've responded to questions from an anonymous donor who turned out to be Scott or just received an email or cold call without any application at all.

The fact that her grants are unrestricted, meaning that nonprofits can use them however they want to further their charitable purpose, is part of what makes them so valuable, Donovan said. Five years into her philanthropic blitz, he said it's now possible to see her impact across whole sectors.

“The scale of this giving has really not just changed individual organizations but changed entire fields like affordable housing,” he said.

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.