MacKenzie Scott in March 2018. Photo / AP
MacKenzie Scott, who promised in 2019 that she would give away her fortune "until the safe is empty," has donated $436 million (NZ$625.7m) to Habitat for Humanity International and its 84 affiliates, the organization said Tuesday.
The gift is designed to help alleviate the global housing shortage and promote "equitable access to affordable housing", Habitat for Humanity said in a statement.
The organisation said that it would use US$25m of the donation over the next three to four years to create more affordable housing and help "the millions of individuals increasingly shut out of the housing market."
"With this donation, Habitat is well positioned to meaningfully advocate for the systemic and societal changes needed to improve equitable access to affordable housing," Jonathan Reckford, chief executive of Habitat for Humanity, said in the statement.
Scott, an author and philanthropist, pledged in 2019 to give away as much of her wealth as possible, after her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. At the time, her portion of the divorce settlement, some 4 per cent of Amazon shares, was valued at around US$36 billion.
But the soaring value of that stock has meant that Scott is accumulating wealth faster than she can give it away. By February, she had donated US$8.8b, and today she is worth nearly US$50b, according to Forbes.
In 2020, Scott gave US$1.7b to a long list of institutions and causes, including historically Black colleges and universities, organisations that support women's rights and LGBTQ equality, and efforts to fight climate change and racial inequity.
Last year, she gave money to organisations such as the Apollo Theater and Ballet Hispánico, though she did not disclose the amounts. Dance Theater of Harlem, which received US$10m from Scott in 2021, said the gift was the largest in its history.
Scott, 51, could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday. She has struggled with the portrayals of her philanthropy, bemoaning what she described as the focus by the news media on the amounts of money she gives away rather than on the work of the organisations that receive her gifts.
"People struggling against inequities deserve centre stage in stories about change they are creating," she wrote in a post on Medium in 2021, when she announced that she was donating more than US$2.7b to 286 organisations.
In December 2021, she said she would no longer announce the names of the organisations that had received donations.
"I want to let each of these incredible teams speak for themselves first if they choose to, with the hope that when they do, media focuses on their contributions instead of mine," she said in another Medium post.
Scott graduated from Princeton University, where she studied creative writing under Toni Morrison.
She pursued a career as a writer even as she helped Bezos start his business. They were married for 25 years. Soon after their divorce, Scott, still using her married name, signed the Giving Pledge, noting that she had "a disproportionate amount of money to share".
Other wealthy people, including Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, have also signed the pledge, promising to give away at least half of their wealth before they die.
But observers of such philanthropy have noted that the Giving Pledge does little to reduce overall wealth because large fortunes keep growing, often faster than philanthropists can reduce them through donations.
Scott's recent decision not to announce the recipients of her gifts has led to calls for her to be more transparent. She appeared to address that criticism in December, saying on Twitter that she "appreciated seeing interest in understanding" how her wealth was distributed and that she was in the process of "sharing details about our first 2+ years of work, including recent gifts".
"Information, too," she said, "is an important form of giving."
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Maria Cramer
© 2022 THE NEW YORK TIMES