MacKenzie Bezos, the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced on Tuesday on Twitter and through a Medium blogpost that she has given $1.67 billion to charities to date. She also announced that she has formally changed her name to MacKenzie Scott.
The nonprofit organizations she has donated to fall under nine categories: racial equity, LGBTQ+ equity, gender equity, economic mobility, empathy and bridging divides, functional democracy, public health, global development and climate change.
Scott signed the Giving Pledge — a promise to give away over half of her wealth away either during their lifetimes or in their wills — in May 2019. Scott is worth an estimated $58 billion as a result of her divorce in mid 2019 from Bezos, in which she received a quarter of his Amazon stake, worth $36 billion at the time.
Of the nine causes, she has given by far the most to racial equity, with $586.7 million in gifts. Her second largest giving area is economic mobility, at $399.5 million in charitable donations. Some of the nonprofit organizations she donated to include Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Black Girls CODE, Blue Meridian Partners, Center for Policing Equity, George W. Bush Presidential Center, Howard University, Obama Foundation and the United Negro College Fund.
“The Glasswing is a tiny butterfly with invisible wings that can carry 40 times its own weight,” Scott wrote. “Over the last fourteen months, I’ve been inspired by the capacity of individuals to lift others: an association of women professionals mentoring girls through the same program that paid for their own educations; a network of low-income families lifting themselves out of poverty by supporting and advising each other.”
Though Scott has remained largely silent since the divorce, she provided some insight in her Medium post to her process so far starting last fall. “I asked a team of non-profit advisors with key representation from historically marginalized race, gender, and sexual identity groups to help me find and assess organizations having major impact on a variety of causes,” she writes.
Scott adds: “Though this work is ongoing and will last for years, I’m posting an update today because my own reflection after recent events revealed a dividend of privilege I’d been overlooking: the attention I can call to organizations and leaders driving change.”
When Scott was still married to Bezos, the couple announced a pledge of $2 billion in November 2018 towards two causes: supporting homeless families and funding the creation of a national network of Montessori-inspired preschools in underserved communities. Called the Bezos Day One Fund, the Amazon founder made around $100 million in donations in both 2018 and 2019 towards nonprofit groups dedicated to providing relief for homeless families. Bezos also announced a $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund in February, dedicated to fighting climate change. He has yet to announce an update on this philanthropic initiative. Jeff Bezos has not signed the Giving Pledge.
Scott ended her note with a promise to continue sharing her charitable giving publicly “in the months and years to come.”
This article originally appeared on Forbes.
