Mackenzie Scott, the world’s 18th-richest person, says she has donated more than $4 billion over the past four months.
In a post on Medium titled “384 Ways to Help,” the billionaire philanthropist outlined her charitable donations, which she said had focused on helping communities with high food insecurity and racial inequality, among others, Scott explained.
“This pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling,” wrote Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
“Economic losses and health outcomes alike have been worse for women, for people of color, and for people living in poverty. Meanwhile, it has substantially increased the wealth of billionaires.”
Scott wrote that she had sought advice from a team of advisors on how to best help those financially suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“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.” she wrote.
While some donations went to filling immediate needs including food banks and emergency relief funds, others focused on tackling long-term systemic issues including “credit and financial services for under-resourced communities” and “education for historically marginalized and underserved people.”
Scott’s 2020 charitable gifts, which total almost $6 billion, “has to be one of the biggest annual distributions by a living individual,” Melissa Berman, chief executive officer of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, told Bloomberg.