MacKenzie Scott said Tuesday that he has donated about $ 1.7 billion of his fortune in the past year since his divorce from Jeff Bezos.
The donations went primarily to social justice, public health and climate change organizations, Scott, a novelist and philanthropist, wrote in a Medium blog post.
Scott, who recently changed his last name to the name he grew up with, is ranked 13 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with an estimated fortune of $ 59.3 billion. Most of that came from a 4% stake in Amazon.com Inc. AMZN,
that he received in his divorce from Bezos.
“Last year I made a commitment to return the majority of my wealth to the society that helped generate it,” Scott wrote, referring to his 2019 signing of Giving Pledge, the campaign organized by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet in 2010, in which The richest people in the world promise to donate more than half of their fortune to charities or philanthropic causes throughout their lives.
Read: How 1% donate to charities differently than everyone else
“Like many, I saw the first half of 2020 with a mix of heartbreak and horror,” he said. “Life will never stop finding new ways to expose inequities in our systems; or wake up to the fact that such an unbalanced civilization is not only unfair, but also unstable. What fills me with hope is the idea of what will come if each of us reflects on what we can offer. “
Here’s how Scott broke down his donations:
Racial equity: $ 586,700,000
LGBTQ + capital: $ 46,000,000
Gender Equity: $ 133,000,000
Economic mobility: $ 399,500,000
Empathy and the bridge divide: $ 55,000,000
Functional democracy: $ 72,000,000
Public health: $ 128,300,000
Global development: $ 130,000,000
Climate change: $ 125,000,000
“On this list, 91% of racial equity organizations are led by leaders of color, 100% of LGBTQ + equity organizations are led by LGBTQ + leaders, and 83% of gender equality organizations are led by women, bringing lived experience to solutions for unbalanced social systems, ”Scott said.
“Organizations … offer a daily reminder that each one can carry more than we imagine. And they offer the opportunity to invest our good fortune in change, no matter what form our good fortune has taken. ”
Her ex-husband Bezos, the world’s richest individual, worth about $ 178 billion, has not signed the Donation Pledge, and has been criticized by some for not donating more to charities.
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