MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, announced her generous donation of $ 4.2 billion to 384 organizations as part of her plan last year to donate most of her fortune during her lifetime.

Until her locker is emptied

This announcement came shortly after McKinsey donated $ 1.7 billion to 116 organizations last July, and published a blog on Medium, saying, "Last year, I pledged to donate the majority of my wealth to society, and I will start." Soon, I will continue with that until the safe is empty. "

She expressed the fear and sadness that I felt, like many, during the first half of this year due to the Corona pandemic, and she said, "What fills me with hope is thinking about what would happen if each of us thought about what he could offer."

Also in her new blog on the Medim website, McKinsey described the epidemic as "a devastating stage in the lives of Americans who are already suffering," adding, "The pandemic has caused enormous economic and health losses, especially for women, people of black skin, and the poor. At the same time, the fortune has doubled." Billionaires. "

Careful selection

The article listed hundreds of organizations that received the funds, including providers of financial services to under-resourced communities, providers of education for the marginalized, and civil rights advocates.

In her article, McKinsey explained that their research and information gathering is not only to identify the most influential institutions, but to find out which organizations are less fortunate to receive grants, and to give them a new opportunity without restrictions, and described the research and bid process carried out by her team as "dependent on data." Accurately, and characterized by the human sense. "

Regarding the selected institutions, McKinsey said, "These institutions devoted their lives to helping others, serving people face to face, and they were by their side on beds and tables, in prisons and courtrooms, in classrooms, streets and hospital wards, and they continue to give day after day."

Grant fruits

And MacKenzie was able to make the largest donation in the history of Morgan State University, in Baltimore, Maryland, which is one of the historic black universities, by giving her $ 40 million, and her grant doubled the number of scholarships offered to students.

Prairie View A&M University, in Texas, also received $ 50 million, which is the largest donation the university has ever received, and thus can double its grants and capabilities, and the list also included Calvin University, Virginia, Dillard.

It is reported that the list of universities that are historically known to be blacks receive small grants compared to other institutions, due to their unfair funding throughout history, and therefore what McKenzie provided to them is a major shift in their path.

Other organizations on the list included the American National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Meals on Wheels, which provides meals for homes of people who can't afford it, YMCA of Switzerland, and United Way. , The Global Fund for Women, and the American Council on Education (ACE), which provide loans to small business owners.

Brent Wakefield, chief executive of Meals on Wheels, which caters to around 850 families, said the McKinsey donation is the second largest gift in the foundation’s history, especially during this critical period.

The association's executive director, Scott King, also stated that he had not even applied for the grant, and that it was her team that contacted them.

 The largest individual grants

MacKenzie comes in the list of the 20 richest people in the world, with a net worth of $ 60.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Index of World Billionaires, and her wealth rose dramatically after the sales of the company "Amazon" (Amazon) doubled during the spread of the Corona pandemic, as she got a quarter of her ex-husband's shares. Bezos, at Amazon, after their 2019 divorce.

And last year, McKinsey joined the Giving Pledge initiative, launched by billionaire Warren Buffett and married couple Bill and Melinda Gates, to encourage the world's richest men and families to leave most of their fortune behind for charity.

On the other hand, her ex-husband Bezos, who is the richest man in the world, did not join the initiative, and after being subjected to a lot of criticism for not contributing more of his wealth to charitable work, he began providing some grants in recent years to organizations that support climate change issues and the food bank.

With this, McKinsey’s donation this year is estimated at about $ 6 billion, and Melissa Berman, who is chief executive of the Rockefeller Foundation, said that the volume of McKinsey donations in just one year is one of the largest individual grants ever.

It is noteworthy that MacKenzie was born on April 7, 1970 and is an American novelist, and worked as the executive director of Bystander Revolution, an anti-bullying organization founded in 2014. She is the author of "The Test of Luther Albright" in 2005, and " Traps in 2013.