American billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott is set to donate all her fortune to charity organizations.
Scott was the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for 25 years and has a net worth of $34 billion. He has donated more than Ksh.2.3 trillion ($16 billion) to over 1,900 organizations, most of which occurred before 2020.
She has now become recognized for her rapid speed of giving in the form of no-strings-attached grants, which has earned her praise from organizations that value the autonomy she has granted them.
Scott signed the Giving Pledge in 2019, a non-binding vow by billionaires to contribute most of their money.
“In addition to whatever assets life has nurtured in me, I have a disproportionate amount of money to share,” she wrote in a letter on the Giving Pledge website. My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful. It will take time, effort, and care. But I won’t wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.”
President of Prairie View A&M University, Ruth Simmons, said of Scott's philanthropy, "The most cherished gifts are those that are unrestricted because a complex university has a wide variety of needs."
Scott donated Ksh.7.1 billion ($50 million) to Simmons University in 2020, making it one of the highest donations in the university's history.
She has already publicized her presence via Medium posts and X. In December, she briefly updated her Yield Giving website, outlining her year's charity efforts.
"Excited to call attention to these 360 outstanding organizations, every one of whom could use more allies,” she wrote. “Grateful to everyone in the extended team who made it possible to give them gifts. Inspired by all the ways people work together to offer each other goodwill and support.”
Scott has pledged to donate most of her income to charity, making headlines in the philanthropic world since 2020, when she began making enormous, unconstrained, frequently multimillion-dollar contributions to NGOs while most other funders distributed much lesser amounts.
Some philanthropy experts have been disappointed that her methods have yet to catch on with other donors. A recent report on the effects of Scott's giving revealed that many funders continue to question the effectiveness of Scott's giving style, mainly because her gifts are too large for grantees to handle.
