MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos’s ex wife, has been quietly and thoughtfully giving away her fortune of around $36 billion to charity. The last we reported on her she’d donated $133 million to an education nonprofit that helps kids stay in school. We only knew about it because the organization, Communities in School, decided to go public with the donation. In MacKenzie’s essays about her charitable donations, which she prefers to call “giving” instead of “philanthropy,” she’s stated that she will not publicize the names of the charities she and her team chooses to support. While she did this in the past, she’s specified that it’s up to the individual organizations to break the news to the press. Now we’re hearing about her donation of almost half a billion to Habitat for Humanity. That’s incredible. Habitat made the announcement in a press release. Here’s more, from the NY Times:
MacKenzie Scott, who promised in 2019 that she would give away her fortune “until the safe is empty,” has donated $436 million to Habitat for Humanity International and its 84 affiliates, the organization said Tuesday.
The gift is designed to help alleviate the global housing shortage and promote “equitable access to affordable housing,” Habitat for Humanity said in a statement.
The organization said that it would use $25 million of the donation over the next three to four years to create more affordable housing and help “the millions of individuals increasingly shut out of the housing market.”
“With this donation, Habitat is well positioned to meaningfully advocate for the systemic and societal changes needed to improve equitable access to affordable housing,” Jonathan Reckford, chief executive of Habitat for Humanity, said in the statement.
[From The NY Times]
What a lovely person she is. She’s a great writer too, read some of her essays on Medium. She’s not going to any openings, she’s not at awards shows, she’s not even holding any charity galas, although doing those things would be perfectly in line with her goal of supporting charities and making a difference in the world. She’s not living large as far as we know either. This woman could buy entire cities and have water parks and malls built to her specifications. (OK so now you know what I would do with that kind of cash. I’m nostalgic and everything would have a late 80s theme. There would be plenty left to give away though and my 80s city would bring joy to children.) She’s just doing the work behind the scenes to give away her massive wealth to deserving organizations and she’s doing it thoughtfully and quietly. I admire her so much. Also Habitat is a great organization! They’ve helped so many people afford homes.
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