MacKenzie Scott retains her giving largely out of the general public eye—permitting recipients to determine whether or not to reveal funding quantities, awarding largely unsolicited grants, and acknowledging her philanthropy solely by annual or semi-annual on-line posts. The one factor that isn’t delicate about her donations? Their measurement.
Scott gave a staggering $7.2 billion in 2025, the philanthropist revealed in a weblog publish earlier this month. The annual replace brings her complete giving over the previous six years to greater than $26 billion. It additionally locations her simply behind fellow billionaires Warren Buffett and Invoice Gates in lifetime philanthropic giving.
Scott, whose estimated $30 billion web value is basically tied to her Amazon stake from her former marriage to Jeff Bezos, pledged in 2019 to donate the majority of this fortune to charity. If this yr’s totals are any indication, she is accelerating towards that purpose: her 2025 giving far outpaced the $2.6 billion and $2.1 billion she donated in 2024 and 2023, respectively.
“This greenback complete will seemingly be reported within the information, however any greenback quantity is a vanishingly tiny fraction of the non-public expressions of care being shared into communities this yr,” Scott wrote in her weblog publish. She pointed to the $471 billion donated to U.S. charities in 2020, practically a 3rd of which got here from items below $5,000, as proof of the ability of collective philanthropy.
Of the practically 200 organizations supported by Scott in 2025, roughly 120 had been repeat grantees. The most important single grant went to Forests, Individuals, Local weather (FPC), a collaborative charitable effort centered on reversing tropical deforestation, which acquired $90 million—boosting its complete funding to greater than $1 billion. “Now could be the time for local weather philanthropy to take motion with imaginative and prescient and braveness: to embrace the potential of forests and again the daring leaders greatest suited to guard them,” stated Lindsey Allen, government director of FPC, in a press release saying the reward earlier this month.
The second-largest donation went to a different environmental group, Ocean Resilience & Local weather Alliance, whereas a slew of different main items flowed towards training. She donated $70 million to each UNCF and Thurgood Marshall Faculty Fund, which assist traditionally Black schools and universities (HBCUs), and in addition gave $63 million every to Prairie View A&M College, Morgan State College and Howard College. Different notable education-focused recipients included the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and Native Ahead Students Fund, which acquired $70 million and $50 million, respectively.
Consequently, training emerged as the most important beneficiary of Scott’s 2025 giving, accounting for 18 % of the overall. Organizations centered on financial safety and funding and regranting every acquired 13 %, whereas environmental causes accounted for 12 %. Extra funding went to teams working in fairness and justice, democratic processes, well being, and humanities and tradition.
Moreover the sheer scale of her philanthropy, Scott’s strategy stands out for its unrestricted nature, giving grantees full management over how funds are used. That flexibility has been extensively welcomed, in accordance with a latest research from the Middle for Efficient Philanthropy, which discovered that almost 90 % of surveyed organizations reported improved long-term monetary sustainability because of Scott’s donations. The median grant measurement was $5 million.
Scott has attributed her generosity to the kindness she has acquired from others. “Whose generosity did I consider each time I made each one of many 1000’s of items I’ve been capable of give?” she wrote. “It was the native dentist who provided me free dental work when he noticed me securing a damaged tooth with denture glue in school. It was the school roommate who discovered me crying, and acted on her urge to mortgage me a thousand {dollars} to maintain me from having to drop out in my sophomore yr.”
The roommate, Jeannie Tarkenton, later based Funding U, a lending firm providing loans to low-income college students with out the necessity for co-signers. Scott has since earmarked funds for the corporate, she famous in her latest weblog publish, describing how she “[jumped] on the probability to be one of many individuals who supported her desires of supporting college students simply as she had as soon as supported me.”
Scott’s monetary contributions to Funding U will take the type of an funding reasonably than a donation. Alongside her philanthropic giving, she introduced final yr that she plans to pursue for-profit investments in “mission-aligned ventures” geared toward addressing challenges akin to reasonably priced housing and entry to well being care.
