After helping her ex-husband found Amazon while writing an award-winning novel, in 2019 MacKenzie Scott signed on to The Giving Pledge, and started gifting her fortune to charities. In the first two weeks of February she has already donated $171.5 million to 4 hard-working groups. The largest recipient is Communities in Schools.
In February alone, four organizations announced gifts from Scott totaling $171.5 million. The largest donation, $133.5 million, went to Communities in Schools, a non-profit that helps keep at-risk children in schools. The National Council on Aging got $8 million, while mental health non-profit the Jed Foundation and reproductive rights group the Guttmacher Institute received $15 million each.
Notably, Scott didn't publicly announce these donations herself, as she has done in the past. In a December Medium post, Scott said she would not reveal the latest recipients of her donations, arguing that the media focuses too much on her and not on the groups she gives money to. Forbes takes the position that people with billions of dollars at their disposal warrant more scrutiny than average Americans because of the power that money wields. After calls for more transparency, in December Scott wrote that she hopes to launch a website with a searchable grants database this year.
