The billionaire and author MacKenzie Scott revealed $7.1 billion in donations to nonprofits Tuesday, bringing her overall giving since 2019 to $26.3 billion.
Scott first pledged to give away the majority of her wealth in 2019 after her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Since, she’s distributed large, unrestricted gifts to nonprofits without asking for applications or progress reports. Largely, her giving has focused in the U.S., though not exclusively.
Scott doesn’t have a public foundation and so it’s not easy to independently track her giving. But she’s revealed her gifts in occasional blog posts and essays posted to her website, Yield Giving, which also now includes a database of her grants.
The amount of her annual giving has fluctuated, ranging from a reported $2.1 billion in 2023 to $7.1 billion in 2025. This year, Scott’s gifts show a focus on supporting higher education and climate.
A new emphasis on climate organizations
When the list of 2025 recipients was published Tuesday, it included a number of significant gifts to climate groups, with the largest — $90 million — going to the collaborative Forests, People, Climate, which focuses on stopping tropical deforestation.
The nonprofit Panorama Global has analyzed Scott’s giving over the years and found that historically, giving to the environment has represented a small part of her overall donations. In 2024, only 9.4% of Scott’s gifts went to environmental groups, though on average the amount of those gifts was larger than to other areas, according to their research.
“What we’re now seeing is different years have different focus areas,” said Gabrielle Fitzgerald, founder and CEO of The Panorama Group. “So last year, there was a really big economic security focus. This year, I really see education and climate.”
The Global Methane Hub, which grants out about $100 million a year to projects that seek to reduce methane emissions, received its second gift from Scott, this time for $60 million. CEO Marcelo Mena called the flexible and generous funding “magical” and said it comes at a crucial time as the Trump administration has undermined collective government action on climate change.
“This is when the philanthropic funding is actually absolutely key,” said Mena. “Because it’s the bridge that we need because we can’t discontinue this fight to reduce emissions and keep the climate safe for everyone.”
Scott’s assets have grown even as she’s given away a fortune
When Scott started detailing her giving in 2020, her fortune was valued around $36 billion, according to Forbes. It’s fluctuated over the years, but today, Forbes estimates her net worth to be $33 billion, even as she’s given away more than $26 billion.
Initially, Scott told grantees not to expect or plan for a second gift, but over time, she has given additional gifts to some of the same organizations, often larger than her original grant.
“She clearly is getting comfortable with reinvesting in partners that she thinks are doing good work,” said Fitzgerald.
At least one organization, CAMFED, which supports girl’s education in African countries, has now received four gifts from Scott, including the largest so far, $60 million, in 2025, according to Scott’s website.
Many generous gifts to minority colleges and universities
In addition to at least $783 million Scott gave to historically Black colleges and universities in 2025, her website details many gifts to tribal colleges, community colleges and scholarship funds.
While Scott has given to higher education since 2020, those gifts have historically been a smaller portion of her education funding. In a 2024 analysis, Panorama Global found nearly 30% of Scott’s education grantees were focused on youth development.
Marybeth Gasman, a professor at Rutgers University and expert on HBCUs, said she noticed that what sets many of the HBCUs who receive Scott’s funding apart from others is steady, consistent leadership and Gasman said, “She’s very interested in institutions that are rooted in community.”
The value of unrestricted grants
Scott does not put any conditions on her donations, allowing recipients to decide how and when to spend the funds. Unrestricted funding is rare from major donors and foundations, with many choosing to support very specific projects over specific timeframes.
However, research from the Center for Effective Philanthropy in 2023 found that concerns about nonprofits misusing Scott’s funds or growing unsustainably have largely not been born out. In part, that may be because Scott’s team researches and vets groups extensively before making donations.
Unrestricted gifts can help nonprofits weather disruptions, test new approaches or technologies or invest in the systems and infrastructure that underpin their work. For example, after the Trump administration cut funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the nonprofit Village Enterprise, which runs antipoverty programs, used a grant it received from Scott in 2023 to keep essential programs running.
Additionally, Scott allows groups the flexibility to decide whether to publicly share how much they’ve received, with more than a third of recipients in 2025 not disclosing the grant amounts in Scott’s grant database. Fitzgerald said altogether, she thinks Scott tries to not make her giving about herself.
“In her essays, she’s always talking about other stakeholders and other people’s contributions,” Fitzgerald said. “So it’s very different than many other philanthropists who are often the center of the story of their gift.”
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