Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife MacKenzie Scott is among the most beneficiant philanthropists within the US – however her large donations provide scant long-term assist to charitable organizations, based on a report.
The billionaire – who pledged to donate half of her $35 billion wealth after finalizing her divorce from the Amazon founder in 2019 – final yr despatched giant, unrestricted items to various big-name nonprofits. Although unusually giant, some specialists say Scott’s donations aren’t properly executed.
“Her gifts are super generous, but unfortunately, they don’t provide long-term sustainability,” Gabrielle Fitzgerald, founder and CEO of Panorama International, which has studied Scott’s donations and their affect, instructed Fortune.
In 2019, Scott signed The Giving Pledge, an initiative launched by Warren Buffett, Melinda French Gates and Invoice Gates to encourage America’s richest to donate greater than half of their wealth. Since then, she has given greater than $19 billion to over 2,000 nonprofits.
Her web price is $31.2 billion – about $4 billion lower than she had after her divorce from Bezos, based on Forbes.
A lot of Scott’s giant, unrestricted donations have gone to bigger-name nonprofits, like her $436 million present to Habitat for Humanity and Habitat associates in 2022.
To increase her donations, Scott final yr provided $1 million grants by way of a partnership with Lever for Change. She required nonprofits to have annual budgets between $1 million and $5 million to use for the grants – which narrows down the applicant pool to only a small proportion of the practically 2 million US nonprofits, based on a Fortune report.
Fitzgerald questioned the billionaire’s transfer to exclude smaller organizations.
“I think the interesting question will be: Will she drop down to the below $1 million annual budget nonprofits in the future?” Fitzgerald instructed Fortune.
Scott must also think about making repeat donations to organizations she has supported up to now, Fitzgerald added.
Scott made $1 million and $2 million items to 361 of the greater than 6,000 nonprofits who utilized for the grants – increasing the preliminary $250 million she placed on the desk to $640 million.
“She’s been an inspiration for a lot of people, but not a lot of people are acting upon that inspiration,” Pamala Wiepking, a professor at Indiana College’s philanthropy college who has studied the affect of unrestricted gifting like Scott’s, instructed Fortune.
Many philanthropists’ objectives don’t really align with the best way they provide grants, Wiepking mentioned.
Although she repeatedly speaks with funders thinking about altering their methods of gifting, she hardly ever sees modifications, Wiepking mentioned.
Scott has been tight-lipped on the subject of her donation technique. After going through criticism for not giving any media interviews on her donations, Scott launched her web site, Yield Giving, the place she publishes quick essays on her items.
In 2022, she launched a database of her donations on the positioning. In contrast to The Giving Pledge, Yield Giving doesn’t have a contact web page.
Advocates of unrestricted nonprofit funding have argued that organizations ought to have free rein to make use of items nonetheless they see match to forestall penny pinching on their operations or salaries.
Some donors of unrestricted items give such a funding to take part within the nonprofit work and provide their very own experience, based on the Fortune report.
However with Scott, “there’s no long-term relationship,” Wiepking instructed Fortune. “What they are saying with trust-based philanthropy is to offer support beyond a check, and that’s typically not what she is doing.”
Scott has donated a median of $3 billion a yr, making her one of many nation’s largest philanthropists. Her grants this yr principally went towards organizations engaged on “race and ethnicity” and “youth development,” based on her web site.
A barely bigger share of her funding this yr went to democracy-focused teams, based on Fitzgerald.
Scott has awarded most of her grants to nonprofits throughout the southern US. In her newest spherical of funding, California and New York had the most important variety of grant recipients.
