MacKenzie Scott Has Pledged to Donate Half Her Net Worth to Charity
Following her divorce from Jeff Bezos in 2019, MacKenzie Scott has devoted her time to philanthropy, and has made a commitment to give away the majority of her wealth, a promise known as the Giving Pledge.
In March of 2021, she married Seattle science teacher Dan Jewett. Like Scott, Jewett also committed to the Giving Pledge. In September 2022, Scott filed for divorce.
Less than two months after finalizing her divorce from Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Scott (formerly Bezos) signed The Giving Pledge, a commitment to give away the majority of her approximately $35 billion net worth. "I have a disproportionate amount of money to share," Bezos said in a letter made public in May 2019.
"My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful. It will take time and effort and care. But I won't wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty."
The Giving Pledge was created by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett in 2014, and the concept is relatively simple. The pledge is "an open invitation for billionaires, or those who would be if not for their giving, to publicly dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy."
Scott appears to be making good on her promise.
In July of 2020, she announced that she has already donated $1.7 billion of her fortune to 116 organizations, many of which are focused on causes related to racial, LGBTQ+, and gender equity; economic mobility; and public health.
"Last year I pledged to give the majority of my wealth back to the society that helped generate it, to do it thoughtfully, to get started soon, and to keep at it until the safe is empty. There’s no question in my mind that anyone’s personal wealth is the product of a collective effort, and of social structures which present opportunities to some people, and obstacles to countless others," she wrote in an open letter on Medium, which also breaks down her donations. It can be read in full, here.
In December of that year, she shared that over the past four months, she had donated $4.2 billion to 384 organizations across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington D.C.
"After my post in July, I asked a team of advisors to help me accelerate my 2020 giving through immediate support to people suffering the economic effects of the crisis. They took a data-driven approach to identifying organizations with strong leadership teams and results, with special attention to those operating in communities facing high projected food insecurity, high measures of racial inequity, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital," she wrote in a post on Medium.
"The result over the last four months has been $4,158,500,000 in gifts to 384 organizations across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington D.C. Some are filling basic needs: food banks, emergency relief funds, and support services for those most vulnerable. Others are addressing long-term systemic inequities that have been deepened by the crisis: debt relief, employment training, credit and financial services for under-resourced communities, education for historically marginalized and underserved people, civil rights advocacy groups, and legal defense funds that take on institutional discrimination." See the full list of donations here.
And in June of 2021, she offered another update on Medium, revealing that she has given $2.74 billion "to 286 high-impact organizations in categories and communities that have been historically underfunded and overlooked."
In this round of funding, she specifically targeted educational institutions "successfully educating students who come from communities that have been chronically underserved" as well as arts and culture institutions, organizations fighting discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities, and groups fighting global poverty. See the full list of donations here.
Scott's update in December 2021, though, caused a bit of controversy, when she said she would not reveal how much money she has given away or to whom since her last blogpost.
She wrote:
"How much or how little money changes hands doesn’t make it philanthropy. Intention and effort make it philanthropy. If we acknowledge what it all has in common, there will be more of it. That’s why I keep referring to what I’m doing as “giving”, a word still being used to describe what humans have been doing with their time, focus, food, cash, and trust to lift each other up for thousands of years. It’s also why I’m not including here any amounts of money I’ve donated since my prior posts. I want to let each of these incredible teams speak for themselves first if they choose to, with the hope that when they do, media focuses on their contributions instead of mine."
Following criticism, Scott shared on Twitter that her team in "in process on a way of sharing details about our first 2+ years of work, including recent gifts, and look forward to sharing that in the year to come in another forum..."
MacKenzie also wrote another blog post, revealing that she and her team have plans to create a searchable database of her gifts. Read that post here.
In March 2022, she wrote that in the past nine months, she's gave over $3 billion to 465 nonprofits, bringing MacKenzie's total charitable giving in three years to over $12 billion. She wrote, "Our team’s focus over these last nine months has included some new areas, but as always our aim has been to support the needs of underrepresented people from groups of all kinds. The cause of equity has no sides."
Thus far, more than 200 individuals, couples, and families, including have signed the Giving Pledge, but one name missing from the list is MacKenzie's ex: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Then the world's richest couple, Jeff and MacKenzie announced their separation in January of 2019 in a joint statement on Twitter. And in early April, MacKenzie shared that she was "grateful to have finished the process of dissolving [her] marriage with Jeff."
In the statement, which she put out on Twitter, Mackenzie also outlined some financial information about their split. She gave her ex-husband her interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, the aerospace company he founded in 2000, as well as 75 percent of their previously shared Amazon stock.
Read her full statement here:
Jeff Bezos also issued a statement on April 4 saying that he is "grateful" to family and friends, and especially to MacKenzie for "reaching out with encouragement and love."
"I'm grateful for her support and for her kindness in this process and am very much looking forward to our new relationship as friends and co-parents," he wrote in the message, which was also shared on Twitter.
In March of 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported that Scott had remarried, and that her new husband, science teacher Dan Jewett had also signed onto Scott's Giving Pledge commitment.
"It is strange to be writing a letter indicating I plan to give away the majority of my wealth during my lifetime, as I have never sought to gather the kind of wealth required to feel like saying such a thing would have particular meaning," he wrote.
"And now, in a stroke of happy coincidence, I am married to one of the most generous and kind people I know—and joining her in a commitment to pass on an enormous financial wealth to serve others." Read his full statement here.
“Dan is such a great guy, and I am happy and excited for the both of them,” Bezos said in a statement provided by an Amazon spokesman to the Wall Street Journal.
But in September 2022, Scott filed for divorce and the pair parted ways. The division of their property is detailed in a contract that is not public, and it's unclear if or how this impacts her net worth.
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