MacKenzie Scott Outlines Criteria For Doling Out Her Billions

Topline

MacKenzie Scott, one of the wealthiest women in the world following her divorce from Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos, launched a website revealing the process behind how she chooses which groups to donate her billions, and outlining how organizations will soon be able to apply for funding.

Mackenzie Scott, pictured here in 2013, is one of the most prolific philanthropists in the world.

Getty Images

Key Facts

The site, Yield Giving, outlines how Scott determines where to allocate her philanthropic contributions, long a mystery.

Scott and her team gather information on nonprofits “as privately and anonymously” as possible, evaluating metrics—including steady finances, several years of tangibly measured success and strong leadership— indicating organizations’ likelihood of making a “sustained positive impact.”

Scott targets “organizations working to advance the opportunities of people in underserved communities,” the site says, listing 53 different focus areas Scott has already contributed toward, including reproductive health, youth development and literary and performing arts.

The site laid out the forthcoming “open-call process” for nonprofits to apply for funding during targeted online application rounds, narrowed by cause, area of operations or overall themes.

Also published was a comprehensive database of all Scott’s donations to date, including the dollar amount of most gifts and sortable by geographic region and theme.

Scott discussed the “strange” process of building the site in an essay posted Wednesday, explaining it’s intended to “break barriers” and “if more information about these gifts can be helpful to anyone, I want to share it.”

Big Number

$14 billion. That’s how much the website says Scott has donated to more than 1,600 nonprofit groups thus far, matching Forbes’ estimate of $14.4 billion last month.

Forbes Valuations

We estimate Scott is worth $26 billion, the 52nd-largest fortune in the world. Scott is the seventh-richest woman on the planet and the fifth-wealthiest American woman. Bezos is the fourth-richest person in the world, worth $111.1 billion.

Key Background

Forbes named Scott the most powerful woman in the world last year thanks to her billions of dollars worth of “no-strings attached” donations. Among Scott’s largest gifts so far have been to Habitat for Humanity ($436 million), the Boys and Girls Club of America ($281 million) and Planned Parenthood ($275 million). Scott has been far more willing to part with her billions than her former husband. Bezos had donated just $2.4 billion to charitable causes as of October, less than 20% of what Scott had given to that point, though Bezos vowed last month to give away a majority of his fortune. Bezos also complained during a November sitdown with CNN that it’s not “easy” to donate money, with many donations proving to be “ineffective.”