MacKenzie Scott is one of the biggest names in philanthropy. The billionaire novelist, philanthropist, and ex-wife to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has donated an eye-popping $26 billion since 2019.
Scott came to much of her fortune through her connection to Bezos. (They divorced in 2019.) During her marriage, she played a key role in Amazon’s founding and early operations, including helping with business plans and contracts. Upon their divorce, she received roughly a 4% stake in Amazon.
Since then, she’s reduced her stake by about 42%, selling or donating about 58 million shares, worth around $12.6 billion as of late 2025. She’s still worth $42.7 billion today, despite having donated more than $26 billion through her philanthropic platform Yield Giving, which she founded in 2022. The organization has donated to thousands of organizations, focused on issues including DEI, education, disaster recovery, and more.
Although Scott continues offloading Amazon shares, her wealth continues to grow. Year-to-date, she’s added $2.35 billion to her net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Since April 2021, Amazon share prices have jumped more than 47%.
Bezos made the largest charitable donation of 2020, a $10 billion gift to launch the Bezos Earth Fund, aimed at addressing climate change. So far, he and his new wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, have donated about $2.3 billion to various environmental groups through the fund and $850 million through Day 1 Families Fund. Also, in 2024, he completed a $200 million pledge to Smithsonian for renovations and a new learning center.
But his lifetime giving amounts to just $4.7 billion, according to Forbes’ America’s Most Generous Philanthropists 2025 list published in April. Considering the man is worth $270 billion, that’s just 1.7% of his net worth, whereas Scott has given about 40% of her net worth.
To be sure, Forbes counts “lifetime giving” as money that has already been donated, and not funds that are just parked in a foundation for now. The list showed Scott is the third-most generous philanthropist, behind Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Melinda French Gates.
MacKenzie Scott’s major gifts in 2025
In a matter of months, Scott donated hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations focused on DEI, education, and disaster recovery. Just a sample of her largest recent gifts include:
- Howard University: $80 million (with $63 million for the university and $17 million for the College of Medicine; one of the largest single donations in Howard’s history)
- Virginia State University: $50 million (the largest gift in the university’s history)
- Alcorn State University: $42 million (the largest single gift in the university’s 154-year history).
- Spelman College: $38 million (one of largest donations in Spelman’s history)
- United Negro College Fund (UNCF): $70 million (for UNCF’s Pooled Endowment Fund to support the financial health of 37 member HBCUs)
- African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund: $40 million (twice the size of Scott’s previous donation to the same organization in 2021)
- Center for Disaster Philanthropy: $60 million (Trump administration canceled or suspended key disaster mitigation grant programs)
MacKenzie Scott’s giving style
Scott’s philanthropic style is considered unique because she makes gifts unrestricted, meaning the organizations can choose how to use the donations. But it’s also the reason she was snubbed from a top donors list this year. Although Scott donated more than $7 billion to more than 120 organizations last year through her philanthropic organization, Yield Giving, the Chronicle didn’t recognize her on its list of the top 50 donors this year.
“MacKenzie Scott is among the notable absences on the Philanthropy 50 list,” according to the Chronicle. “While it is possible she made gifts to her donor-advised funds that would have earned her a spot on the Philanthropy 50, she and her representatives declined to provide such information to the Chronicle.”
But her secretive style is one appreciated by beneficiaries.
“Unlike traditional funding processes that often involve lengthy applications, specific restrictions, and reporting requirements, her style empowers organizations like ours to determine how best to direct funds quickly and innovatively to address pressing issues,” Noni Ramos, CEO of Housing Trust Silicon Valley, told Fortune in late 2024, when her organization received a $30 million gift from Scott.
Scott has also been particularly focused on DEI, education, and disaster relief recently, three areas where the Trump administration has made major cuts. This could suggest Scott’s philanthropy is trying to fill the void from the White House.
She stands behind the idea Americans should “recognize and celebrate our role as active participants in the co-creation of our communities,” Scott wrote in an Dec. 9 post on her Yield Giving site.
“The potential of peaceful, non-transactional contribution has long been underestimated, often on the basis that it is not financially self-sustaining, or that some of its benefits are hard to track,” she wrote. “But what if these imagined liabilities are actually assets? What if these so-called weaknesses foster the strengths upon which the thriving (or even survival) of our civilization depends?”
A version of this story was originally published on Fortune.com on November 7, 2025.
More on MacKenzie Scott:
- MacKenzie Scott is bypassing the Ivy League and rewriting the $79 billion higher ed playbook by giving to HBCUs and community colleges
- MacKenzie Scott’s latest donation takes her HBCU giving to well over $1 billion
- MacKenzie Scott gave away more than $7 billion last year—but her secretive style got her snubbed from a top donors list
