If you're going "MacKenzie Who?" she's Jeff Bezos' ex-wife. This is what she has been doing instead of flying a giant penis rocket into sub-orbital space.One email about a $15 million gift, suspected of phishing, sat unopened for a month. Several others about a $20 million pledge went ignored by an assistant, who thought the nondescript sender was fake. The recipient of another memo, promising millions more, turned to their lawyer, who said it was likely a scam.
All of those big-fortune messages, and hundreds more like them, were not only legitimate, they came from the same source: a team working on behalf of MacKenzie Scott, fourth richest woman in the world — and, increasingly, the most powerful and mysterious force in philanthropy today.
With almost $8.6 billion in gifts announced in just 12 months, Scott has vaulted to the tippy top of philanthropic giving, outspending the behemoth Gates and Ford Foundations’ annual grants — combined. But, for someone who is single handedly reshaping nonprofits, Scott, who declined to comment for this story, has only given the public glimpses into the thinking driving her decisions. These days, she shares little more than the list of lucky organizations and an inspirational quote.
To get a better sense of which causes are benefiting from Scott’s coffers — and where she might turn her attention to next — Bloomberg categorized, by location and type, all 786 gifts she has given so far. We then tracked the money, using a survey and reporting, and found at least $4.3 billion distributed in 375 grants. The recipients of the remaining 411 haven’t disclosed the size of Scott’s gifts.
The groups that shared information are largely representative of the cross section of overall recipients. Education and arts and culture organizations were more likely to disclose the size of their gifts..... [continues in link]
I find it interesting she's doing this solely as a private citizen and not setting up a foundation. Not the usual way this sort of thing is done. Very low key.