MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos, announced Tuesday that she has given away nearly $1.7 billion since last fall to 116 nonprofits, mostly to organizations devoted to equity that are led by women, minorities, and LGBTQ people.
Scott signed the Giving Pledge last year; her ex-husband has not.
Scott is the richest woman in America, according to Forbes, with a net worth of about $62 billion.
She made today’s announcement in a post on Medium, where she listed the amounts she’s given to nine causes. She also listed the 116 organizations that received the money. “Unless organization leadership requested otherwise, all commitments were paid up front and left unrestricted to provide them with maximum flexibility,” she wrote.
Scott noted that the groups she selected were largely run by the people the organization seeks to serve. “On this list, 91 percent of the racial-equity organizations are run by leaders of color, 100 percent of the LGBTQ+ equity organizations are run by LGBTQ+ leaders, and 83 percent of the gender-equity organizations are run by women, bringing lived experience to solutions for imbalanced social systems,” she wrote.
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TheDream.US is the nation’s largest college access and success program for immigrant youth, having provided more than 5,000 college scholarships to DREAMers at more than 70 partner colleges in 16 states and Washington, DC. We believe that all young Americans, regardless of where they were born, should have the opportunity to get a college education and pursue a meaningful career that contributes to our country’s prosperity.