MacKenzie Scott announced on Wednesday in a blog post that it has donated $2 billion this year to 199 organizations. The 54-year-old billionaire philanthropist has now given away a total of $19.2 billion since 2019. for AP.
About 75% of the organizations Scott has donated to this year are nonprofits focused on economic security and opportunity. They focus on causes such as affordable housing, health care, jobs and credit.
For example, last month, Scott donated $65 million for Enterprise Community Partners, a nonprofit organization that addresses the affordable housing shortage in the United States. It was the second gift Scott made to the organization; the first was $50 million in 2020.
Related: 'I wanted to cry for joy': MacKenzie Scott donates $65 million gift to housing nonprofit
The remaining organizations focus on other causes related to human welfare, such as conservation of natural resources and human rights.
MacKenzie Scott. Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images
Scott has taken a “faith-based” philanthropic approach, giving large sums of money over the past five years without strings attached to more than 2,500 organizations, and detailed how her approach to giving differs from the rest.
What does MacKenzie Scott look for when donating?
Scott has asked her investment team to find companies focused on for-profit solutions to the same issues that nonprofits address.
Instead of transferring funds from a personal bank account or a stock portfolio, Scott would like to source her donations from a portfolio of investments she has made in ventures with the same mission as the nonprofit that will receive the gift.
In this way the money has a dual purpose: first by “unlocking…innovation” in the private sector and second by “creating value” in nonprofits, Scott. wrote in a blog post released on Wednesday.
“I'm inspired by all the ways people invest in each other,” she wrote.
Related: Girl Scouts of the USA receives largest single donation in over 100 years, thanks to Mackenzie Scott
Most of Scott's fortune comes from the Amazon stake she subsequently acquired divorcing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2019.
She sold more than 45 million shares Amazon shares were valued at nearly $8.4 billion last month making a $65 million donation to Local Initiatives Support Corp, a community support organization.
Scott has a fortune of about $40.3 billion and is the 39th richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.