NEWS
Jeff Bezos’s ex MacKenzie Scott makes stunning $300MILLION in donations to ‘historically black colleges’, She hopes that this will promote higher education access and affordability for students of color.
Jeff Bezos‘s ex-wife MacKenzie Scott has donated more than a whopping $300 million over the course of just one month to universities and higher education scholarship organizations.
The 55-year-old divorcee seems to be focusing her efforts on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as well as nonprofit organizations that promote higher education access and affordability for students of color.
Votes are not the only way to show what we’d like to see more of in our societies,’ Scott wrote on her website, Yield Giving, amid the news of her latest philanthropy.
‘There are many ways to influence how we move through the world and where we land,’ she said.
Scott’s efforts apparently began in mid-October, when she gave Morgan State University, a Maryland-based HBCU, a $63 million unrestricted gift – its largest ever.
The university announced the funds on October 15, noting that it was Scott’s second major contribution to the school in less than five years.
In 2020, she had donated $40 million to the institution – which is the third largest HBCU in the nation.
University officials said they would use the money to ‘further strengthen Morgan’s endowment, enhance support for student success and to advance initiatives that enhance Morgan’s role as an anchor institution in Baltimore and a Public Impact Very High Research University.’
‘MacKenzie Scott’s renewed investment in Morgan is a resounding testament to the work we’ve done to drive transformation, not only within our campus, but throughout the communities we serve,’ President David Wilson said.
‘To receive one historic gift from Ms Scott was an incredible honor; to receive two speaks volumes about the confidence she and her team have in our institutions, stewardship, leadership and trajectory,’ he added.
‘This is more than philanthropy – it’s a partnership in progress.’
But Scott also donated $38 million to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore one week later, representing the largest single gift in the school’s history.
Scott is estimated to have a net worth of more than $33 billion, most of which came as part of her divorce settlement in 2019, when she received a four percent stake in Amazon.