MacKenzie Scott, who promised in 2019 that she would give away her fortune “till the secure is empty,” has donated $436 million to Habitat for Humanity Worldwide and its 84 associates, the group stated Tuesday.
The present is designed to assist alleviate the worldwide housing scarcity and promote “equitable entry to inexpensive housing,” Habitat for Humanity stated in an announcement.
The group stated that it will use $25 million of the donation over the subsequent three to 4 years to create extra inexpensive housing and assist “the tens of millions of people more and more shut out of the housing market.”
“With this donation, Habitat is properly positioned to meaningfully advocate for the systemic and societal adjustments wanted to enhance equitable entry to inexpensive housing,” Jonathan Reckford, chief govt of Habitat for Humanity, stated within the assertion.
Ms. Scott, an writer and philanthropist, pledged in 2019 to present away as a lot of her wealth as doable, after her divorce from Jeff Bezos, the founding father of Amazon. On the time, her portion of the divorce settlement, some 4 % of Amazon shares, was valued at round $36 billion.
However the hovering worth of that inventory has meant that Ms. Scott is accumulating wealth quicker than she may give it away.
By February, she had donated $8.8 billion, and as we speak she is value almost $50 billion, in line with Forbes.
In 2020, Ms. Scott gave $1.7 billion to an extended listing of establishments and causes, together with traditionally Black faculties and universities, organizations that assist girls’s rights and L.G.B.T.Q. equality, and efforts to battle local weather change and racial inequity.
Final 12 months, she gave cash to organizations such because the Apollo Theater and Ballet Hispánico, although she didn’t disclose the quantities. Dance Theater of Harlem, which acquired $10 million from Ms. Scott in 2021, stated the present was the biggest in its historical past.
Ms. Scott, 51, couldn’t instantly be reached for touch upon Tuesday. She has struggled with the portrayals of her philanthropy, bemoaning what she described as the main focus by the information media on the quantities of cash she offers away quite than on the work of the organizations that obtain her items.
“Folks struggling towards inequities deserve middle stage in tales about change they’re creating,” she wrote in a publish on Medium in 2021, when she introduced that she was donating greater than $2.7 billion to 286 organizations.
In December 2021, she stated she would not announce the names of the organizations that had acquired donations.
“I wish to let every of those unimaginable groups converse for themselves first in the event that they select to, with the hope that after they do, media focuses on their contributions as a substitute of mine,” she stated in one other Medium publish.
Ms. Scott graduated from Princeton, the place she studied inventive writing underneath Toni Morrison.
She pursued a profession as a author at the same time as she helped Mr. Bezos begin his enterprise. They had been married for 25 years. Quickly after their divorce, Ms. Scott, nonetheless utilizing her married identify, signed the Giving Pledge, noting that she had “a disproportionate amount of cash to share.”
Different rich folks, together with Warren Buffett and Invoice Gates, have additionally signed the pledge, promising to present away a minimum of half of their wealth earlier than they die.
However observers of such philanthropy have famous that the Giving Pledge does little to a scale back general wealth as a result of massive fortunes continue to grow, typically quicker than philanthropists can scale back them by way of donations.
And Ms. Scott’s latest resolution to not announce the recipients of her items has led to requires her to be extra clear.
Ms. Scott appeared to deal with that criticism in December, saying on Twitter that she “appreciated seeing curiosity in understanding” how her wealth was distributed and that she was within the strategy of “sharing particulars about our first 2+ years of labor, together with latest items.”
“Data, too,” she stated, “is a vital type of giving.”