ex-spouse of Jeff Bezos gives away $4bn in 4 months

© AP
MacKenzie Scott, the ex-spouse of the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, has donated far more than $4bn in the past 4 months

MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, has donated much more than $4bn in the previous four months to hundreds of charities and help organisations, which include meals banking companies fighting the influence of the coronavirus pandemic.

Scott, who has a individual net well worth of much more than $60bn (£44.5bn), pledged to give away significantly of her wealth after her divorce settlement with Bezos last yr.

In July, Scott said she experienced donated $1.7bn to 116 charities. On Tuesday, she claimed she had determined to “accelerate” her donation approach this yr, and in the earlier 4 months has offered a even more $4.15bn to 384 organisations across the US and Puerto Rico, having her whole donations this yr to $6bn.

“This pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the life of Us residents previously struggling,” she wrote in a blogpost titled 384 Methods to Assistance. “Economic losses and well being results alike have been worse for girls, for persons of colour, and for individuals dwelling in poverty. Meanwhile, it has significantly improved the prosperity of billionaires.”

Bezos, who experienced been married to MacKenzie for 26 many years, is the world’s wealthiest person, with a fortune estimated at $182bn, in accordance to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

MacKenzie stated she took a “data-driven” tactic to deciding on the recipients of donations. Nonetheless, her staff paid out “special consideration to these working in communities experiencing superior projected foodstuff insecurity, superior measures of racial inequity, high area poverty costs, and low accessibility to philanthropic capital”.

She additional that some of her donations aimed to fulfil fundamental requirements, such as food stuff banks, crisis relief resources and guidance for the most vulnerable. Other people targeted on extensive-expression difficulties that the pandemic has exacerbated, these kinds of as personal debt aid, employment instruction and instruction for “historically marginalised and underserved people”, as very well as civil legal rights groups and legal defence resources.

In complete, her workforce appeared at 6,490 organisations and place 822 into “deeper research”.

This yr, Bezos has fully commited $10bn to concerns linked to climate adjust. In November, he declared the first of all those grants, handing out almost $800m to 16 groups.