MacKenzie Scott announced she has given away more than $4.2 billion in the last four months to hundreds of organizations, including food banks and emergency relief funds across the U.S. in the face of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, USA Today reported Wednesday.
Her generosity comes several weeks after she announced that she had already donated $1.7 billion between January and July this year to diverse organizations, including historical Black colleges and universities, making her total donations to almost $6 billion -- equivalent to the gross domestic product of nations like Malawi and Guam.
After her divorce from Jeff Bezos, Scott promised in March last year to distribute at least 50 percent of her wealth to charitable causes as part of the charitable initiative called "Giving Pledge," established in 2010 by billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett that encourages the world's wealthiest people to give away over half of their money to the less fortunate.
"This pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling," Agence France-Presse quoted the philanthropist-writer as saying in a post that outlines her second round of donations this year.
All in all, Scott has donated to 385 organizations over the last third of 2020, including charity groups in all 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. According to Bloomberg, Scott is currently the 18th wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of $61 billion. She's also the world's third-wealthiest woman.
"In addition to whatever assets life has nurtured in me, I have a disproportionate amount of money to share," Scott said.
Hundreds of other organizations that Scott has donated to include education for historically marginalized and underserved people, job training, civil rights advocacy, debt relief, credit and financial services for under-resourced communities, and legal defense funds that take on institutional discrimination.
