MacKenzie Scott is a highly influential philanthropist and novelist. Since launching her giving initiative, she has distributed approximately $26.3 billion to more than 2,700 non-profit organizations. Her philanthropy is defined by unrestricted grants, allowing organizations to use the capital wherever it is most needed. Feb 9, 2026
Philanthropy & Yield Giving
💸 Total Impact: She has donated over $26 billion through her philanthropic vehicle, Yield Giving.
💸 Giving Style: Unlike traditional philanthropy, Scott's model provides large, unrestricted gifts with no lengthy applications, mandatory reporting, or naming restrictions.
💸 Focus Areas: Her donations span a wide variety of causes, including racial equity, gender equality, climate change, and poverty alleviation.
💸 Giving Style: Unlike traditional philanthropy, Scott's model provides large, unrestricted gifts with no lengthy applications, mandatory reporting, or naming restrictions.
💸 Focus Areas: Her donations span a wide variety of causes, including racial equity, gender equality, climate change, and poverty alleviation.
Business & Amazon
* Amazon Foundation: She was one of Amazon's earliest employees, helping to found the company alongside her former husband, Jeff Bezos, in 1994.
* Contributions: She played an instrumental behind-the-scenes role in the early days of the company, assisting with the business plan and the company's name.
* Contributions: She played an instrumental behind-the-scenes role in the early days of the company, assisting with the business plan and the company's name.
Background & Literary Career
📚 Education: She graduated from Princeton University in 1992 with a degree in English literature.
📜 Mentorship: During her time at Princeton, she studied under the acclaimed author Toni Morrison.
📕 Author: In addition to her philanthropy, she is an established novelist and author.
📜 Mentorship: During her time at Princeton, she studied under the acclaimed author Toni Morrison.
📕 Author: In addition to her philanthropy, she is an established novelist and author.
Track the latest recipients and distributions or learn about the organization’s criteria on the Yield Giving website.
The name of her organization itself is a clue to her approach and
intentions. Yield Giving is a repurposing of a common term from finance
and investing. At the top of her website, she defines “yield” by noting
two of its meanings:
“yield: (verb) 1. to increase. 2. to give up
control.”
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Philanthropy, to the Rescue
Having donated more than $19 billion since 2019, MacKenzie Scott ’92 is setting a new model for philanthropy, not just in the scope, but also in the way she gives
In 2019, as MacKenzie Scott ’92 began giving away billions of dollars at a pace that few, if any, in the history of philanthropy have ever matched, her mind traveled back to when she was pinching pennies at Princeton. At the time, juggling jobs with classes wasn’t making ends meet. She tried gluing a broken tooth by herself because she couldn’t afford a dentist. She was on the verge of quitting college as a sophomore for lack of funds.
Nearly three decades after graduation, when circumstances positioned her to be able to give like a Carnegie, Rockefeller, Buffett, or Gates, she didn’t model her singular philanthropic style on such eminent givers.
Nearly three decades after graduation, when circumstances positioned her to be able to give like a Carnegie, Rockefeller, Buffett, or Gates, she didn’t model her singular philanthropic style on such eminent givers.
“Whose generosity did I think of when I made every one of the hundreds of gifts I’ve given so far?”
Scott wrote in a 2021 essay on philanthropy.
“It was the local dentist who offered me free dental work when he saw me securing a broken tooth with denture glue in college.
It was the college roommate who found me crying and acted on her urge to loan me a thousand dollars to keep me from having to drop out sophomore year.”
The acts of charity she experienced at Princeton taught her that the size of a gift matters less than the intention behind it, and in that sense, all of us have the capacity to be philanthropists. She realized that giving starts with an impulse, and it’s wise to act quickly on that impulse. She became convinced that givers should trust the receivers to know best what to do with the gift. After giving, the givers should step aside, be all but invisible, while the receivers shin
Her Princeton experience showed her one more thing: The returns on generosity are incalculable. Consider the Princeton roommate who spotted her $1,000. Could the roommate have known that the English major she helped stay in school would go on to become a novelist mentored by Toni Morrison — her thesis adviser — who would recommend her for the job where she would meet her future husband, whom she would help start an internet bookselling business that would revolutionize online retailing and make the couple one of the richest in history?
The acts of charity she experienced at Princeton taught her that the size of a gift matters less than the intention behind it, and in that sense, all of us have the capacity to be philanthropists. She realized that giving starts with an impulse, and it’s wise to act quickly on that impulse. She became convinced that givers should trust the receivers to know best what to do with the gift. After giving, the givers should step aside, be all but invisible, while the receivers shin
Her Princeton experience showed her one more thing: The returns on generosity are incalculable. Consider the Princeton roommate who spotted her $1,000. Could the roommate have known that the English major she helped stay in school would go on to become a novelist mentored by Toni Morrison — her thesis adviser — who would recommend her for the job where she would meet her future husband, whom she would help start an internet bookselling business that would revolutionize online retailing and make the couple one of the richest in history?
Jeannie Ringo Tarkenton ’92, that generous sophomore roommate, later founded a company, Funding U, which has provided $80 million in low-interest loans, without requiring co-signers, to about 8,000 students needing help to pay for college. Tarkenton demurs when asked about her impact on Scott’s trajectory. “I’ve always said she would have graduated without that grace, as would probably a lot of the thousands of kids I help because they are hardworking people who kind of try to figure it out,” Tarkenton says in an interview with PAW. “But small graces everywhere add up — or big graces, when it comes to MacKenzie’s” giving.
Scott, in her essay, portrays the roommates’ exchange and its aftermath as a parable of the kind of philanthropy she aspired to practice. Scott ended up loaning to Funding U a portion of the capital that Funding U has loaned to students, whose repayments are then loaned to more students.
“How quickly did I jump at the opportunity to support her dream of supporting students like she once supported me?” Scott wrote. “And to whom will each of the thousands of students thriving on those gratitude-powered student loans go on to give? None of
us has any idea.
MacKenzie Scott ’92, Toni Morrison, former Princeton administrator Ruth Simmons, and Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 celebrate the naming of Morrison Hall in November 2017
In 1992, a young woman named MacKenzie Tuttle graduated from Princeton University with a degree in English literature. She had studied under Toni Morrison, who later called her one of the best creative writing students she had ever taught. Sharp, disciplined, and gifted with language, MacKenzie took a job at a high-performing New York hedge fund called D.E. Shaw, where a conventional career in finance seemed to await her. Then she met Jeff Bezos.
He had an unusual idea — selling books on the internet. Most people who heard it dismissed it. MacKenzie did not. She married him in 1993, helped pack their belongings into a car, and drove cross-country to Bellevue, Washington. In a rented garage, with a few computers and no guarantee of anything, they built Amazon together. In those earliest days there were no vast teams or polished systems. There were two people packing boxes, answering customer calls, writing business materials, and building something from nothing.
She was there at the very beginning of all of it.
As Amazon grew into a global force, MacKenzie stepped back to raise their four children and pursue her own writing. She published two well-regarded novels, taught writing, and lived quietly and largely out of public view for most of the next two decades.
Then, in January 2019, Jeff Bezos announced their divorce.. The settlement gave MacKenzie approximately four percent of Amazon's shares — worth roughly $36 to $38 billion at the time — making her one of the wealthiest people on earth, essentially overnight.
What she did next is what this story is actually about. - Within months, she signed the Giving Pledge, a commitment to donate the majority of her wealth to charitable causes. Her letter explaining the decision was short and striking.
She did not describe the fortune as her personal achievement. She described it as something built by the collective labor of countless people — something that needed to be returned, not kept.
She meant it. She built a small, focused team and created a philanthropic initiative called Yield Giving.
The approach was deliberately different from how most billionaires give. No lengthy applications. No required progress reports.
No conditions attached. No press releases issued in her name. Instead, her team quietly identified organizations doing serious, underfunded work in overlooked communities — then called them out of nowhere and told them a large unrestricted gift was on its way.
Many recipients thought it was a scam. Some asked the caller to repeat the number. Others wept. She gave hundreds of millions to Historically Black Colleges and Universities — the largest single gift in the institutional history of many of them. She gave $436 million to Habitat for Humanity. She directed enormous gifts to food banks, climate organizations, racial equity groups, women's health initiatives, immigration services, rural communities, tribal colleges, shelters, and prison reform programs — causes that larger, more image-conscious philanthropists had long considered too unglamorous or too complicated.
In 2025 alone, she donated $7.17 billion to 186 organizations. That single year of giving exceeded the entire lifetime charitable giving of her former husband. Her total giving since 2019 now stands at $26.3 billion across more than 2,700 organizations. Forbes places her third among all living philanthropists in lifetime giving — behind only Warren Buffett and Bill Gates — and she reached that position in just six years.
Her net worth still sits at approximately $38 to $40 billion despite all of it. The stock keeps rising faster than she can give it away.
Here is the part most people do not know.
MacKenzie Scott did not grow up wealthy. At Princeton, she struggled. A local dentist once gave her free dental work after seeing her use denture glue on a broken tooth because she could not afford care. A college roommate loaned her $1,000 when she was nearly unable to pay tuition and on the edge of dropping out. Those two small acts of generosity from strangers never left her. They are part of why she gives the way she does — quietly, without transaction, without expecting anything back.
She has no named buildings. No branded foundation. No public speeches. She does not attend galas in her honor because she does not hold them. In her 2025 year-end essay, she described herself as one small part of a much larger story — the dollar total of her giving a tiny fraction of the care being shared into communities every year by ordinary people.
She is also a novelist. A mother of four. A woman who once worked in a garage when a company had nothing, and who is now systematically redistributing a fortune built from that same company — not to cement a legacy, but simply because she believes other people need it more than she does.
There is a word for that. Not philanthropy. Not strategy. Just generosity. The same kind a dentist once showed a young woman with a br*ken tooth, and a roommate showed a friend who was crying over tuition.
It ripples forward.
Apparently, it always does.
He had an unusual idea — selling books on the internet. Most people who heard it dismissed it. MacKenzie did not. She married him in 1993, helped pack their belongings into a car, and drove cross-country to Bellevue, Washington. In a rented garage, with a few computers and no guarantee of anything, they built Amazon together. In those earliest days there were no vast teams or polished systems. There were two people packing boxes, answering customer calls, writing business materials, and building something from nothing.
She was there at the very beginning of all of it.
As Amazon grew into a global force, MacKenzie stepped back to raise their four children and pursue her own writing. She published two well-regarded novels, taught writing, and lived quietly and largely out of public view for most of the next two decades.
Then, in January 2019, Jeff Bezos announced their divorce.. The settlement gave MacKenzie approximately four percent of Amazon's shares — worth roughly $36 to $38 billion at the time — making her one of the wealthiest people on earth, essentially overnight.
What she did next is what this story is actually about. - Within months, she signed the Giving Pledge, a commitment to donate the majority of her wealth to charitable causes. Her letter explaining the decision was short and striking.
She did not describe the fortune as her personal achievement. She described it as something built by the collective labor of countless people — something that needed to be returned, not kept.
She meant it. She built a small, focused team and created a philanthropic initiative called Yield Giving.
The approach was deliberately different from how most billionaires give. No lengthy applications. No required progress reports.
No conditions attached. No press releases issued in her name. Instead, her team quietly identified organizations doing serious, underfunded work in overlooked communities — then called them out of nowhere and told them a large unrestricted gift was on its way.
Many recipients thought it was a scam. Some asked the caller to repeat the number. Others wept. She gave hundreds of millions to Historically Black Colleges and Universities — the largest single gift in the institutional history of many of them. She gave $436 million to Habitat for Humanity. She directed enormous gifts to food banks, climate organizations, racial equity groups, women's health initiatives, immigration services, rural communities, tribal colleges, shelters, and prison reform programs — causes that larger, more image-conscious philanthropists had long considered too unglamorous or too complicated.
In 2025 alone, she donated $7.17 billion to 186 organizations. That single year of giving exceeded the entire lifetime charitable giving of her former husband. Her total giving since 2019 now stands at $26.3 billion across more than 2,700 organizations. Forbes places her third among all living philanthropists in lifetime giving — behind only Warren Buffett and Bill Gates — and she reached that position in just six years.
Her net worth still sits at approximately $38 to $40 billion despite all of it. The stock keeps rising faster than she can give it away.
Here is the part most people do not know.
MacKenzie Scott did not grow up wealthy. At Princeton, she struggled. A local dentist once gave her free dental work after seeing her use denture glue on a broken tooth because she could not afford care. A college roommate loaned her $1,000 when she was nearly unable to pay tuition and on the edge of dropping out. Those two small acts of generosity from strangers never left her. They are part of why she gives the way she does — quietly, without transaction, without expecting anything back.
She has no named buildings. No branded foundation. No public speeches. She does not attend galas in her honor because she does not hold them. In her 2025 year-end essay, she described herself as one small part of a much larger story — the dollar total of her giving a tiny fraction of the care being shared into communities every year by ordinary people.
She is also a novelist. A mother of four. A woman who once worked in a garage when a company had nothing, and who is now systematically redistributing a fortune built from that same company — not to cement a legacy, but simply because she believes other people need it more than she does.
There is a word for that. Not philanthropy. Not strategy. Just generosity. The same kind a dentist once showed a young woman with a br*ken tooth, and a roommate showed a friend who was crying over tuition.
It ripples forward.
Apparently, it always does.
MacKenzie Scott.
Philanthropy: As of 2022, she has donated over $19 billion to more than 2,450 non-profit organizations through her initiative, Yield Giving.Background: She graduated from Princeton University in 1992 with a degree in English literature, studying under author Toni Morrison.Business Career: She was an early employee at Amazon, helping to found the company alongside her former husband.
Philanthropy: As of 2022, she has donated over $19 billion to more than 2,450 non-profit organizations through her initiative, Yield Giving.Background: She graduated from Princeton University in 1992 with a degree in English literature, studying under author Toni Morrison.Business Career: She was an early employee at Amazon, helping to found the company alongside her former husband.
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