MacKenzie Scott, who promised in 2019 that she would give up her assets “until the safe is empty,” donated $ 436 million to Habitat for Humanity International and its 84 branches, the organization said Tuesday.
The gift is designed to address the global housing shortage and “promote equitable access to affordable housing,” Habitat for Humanity said in a statement.
The organization said it would use $ 25 million of the donation over the next three to four years to create more affordable housing and help “exclude the millions of individuals increasingly from the housing market.”
“With this donation, Habitat is well positioned to make meaningful calls for the systemic and societal changes needed to improve equitable access to affordable housing,” said Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity, in the statement.
Ms. Scott, an author and philanthropist, pledged in 2019 to give up as much of her wealth as possible, following her divorce from Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. At the time, its share of the divorce redemption, about 4 percent of Amazon shares, was estimated at about $ 36 billion.
But the so-called value of that stock meant that Mrs. Scott was accumulating wealth faster than she could afford it.
By February, she had spent $ 8.8 billion, and today she is worth nearly $ 50 billion, according to Forbes.
In 2020, Ms. Scott provided $ 1.7 billion for a long list of institutions and causes, including historic Black colleges and universities, organizations that support women’s rights and LGBTQ equality, and efforts to address climate change and to combat racist inequality.
Last year, she donated money to organizations such as the Apollo Theater and Ballet Hispánico, although she did not disclose the quantities. Harlem Dance Theater, which received $ 10 million from Mrs. Scott in 2021, said the gift was the largest in its history.
Mrs Scott, 51, could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. She struggled with the portraits of her philanthropy, complaining about what she described as the focus of the news media on the amounts of money she gives away rather than on the work of the organizations that receive her gifts.
“People who fight against injustice deserve the center of attention in the stories about the change they are creating,” she wrote in a post on Medium in 2021, announcing that she was raising more than $ 2.7 Billions donated to 286 organizations.
In December 2021, she said she would no longer announce the names of the organizations that received donations.
“I want each of these incredible teams to speak for themselves first when they choose to do so, with the hope that when they do, the media will focus on their contributions instead of mine,” she said in another media post.
Mrs. Scott graduated from Princeton, where she studied creative writing under Toni Morrison.
She pursued a career as a writer as well as helping Mr Bezos start his own business. They were married for 25 years. Shortly after her divorce, Mrs. Scott, still using her married name, signed the Giving Pledge, noting that she was “sharing a disproportionate amount of money.”
Other wealthy people, including Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, have also signed the pledge, promising to give at least half of their wealth before they die.
But observers of such philanthropy have noted that the giving pledge does little to reduce overall wealth because large fortunes are growing faster, often faster than philanthropists can reduce them through donations.
And Mrs Scott’s recent decision not to notify recipients of her gifts has led to calls for more transparency.
Ms Scott seems to be addressing this criticism in December, saying on Twitter that she “appreciated interest in understanding” how her wealth was distributed and that she was “sharing details about our first 2+ years of work, including recent. Gifts. “
“Information, too,” she said, “is an important form of donation.”
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