MacKenzie Scott gave a nonprofit $20 million in 2020. Five years later, it got another $50 million after an email and a phone call

MacKenzie Scott has built an unusual approach to philanthropy: Instead of asking nonprofits to compete for grants through a formal application process, her team often reaches out quietly, sometimes with little more than an email and a short phone call.

One example came in 2020, when Albuquerque-based nonprofit Native Forward received a surprise $20 million gift from Scott. As per reports, the process began with an email marked “confidential,” followed by a brief phone conversation.

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Five years later, the organization received another extraordinary gift: $50 million. This time, the outreach reportedly began with an email asking for just 15 minutes of the recipient’s time, as per a report of the Wall Street Journal.

Native Forward used Scott’s funding to expand scholarships and student advising, purchase a new headquarters building and establish a $40 million endowment.

As per the Journal, a similar surprise unfolded at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in 2020. President Heidi M. Anderson initially ignored several emails from an unfamiliar sender. After asking her vice president of advancement to investigate, she discovered that Scott intended to give the historically Black university $20 million.

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The university received another $38 million from Scott in 2025. Its grants helped support pandemic-era campus preparations, research into changes in learning and the growth of its endowment.

These unexpected encounters are part of what makes Scott’s philanthropy different from the traditional billionaire playbook. Her organization, Yield Giving, says its approach relies on “quiet research,” conducted by a small team and a network of advisers.

According to the report, Scott has also moved away from accepting unsolicited requests. There is no standard application process for organizations hoping to receive her money, meaning many recipients have little idea they are even being considered until Scott’s team contacts them.

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The scale of her giving is remarkable. Scott reportedly donated an estimated $7.2 billion to 186 organizations in 2025 alone, putting her among the world's most prolific philanthropists. Her lifetime giving has been estimated at more than $26 billion.

Much of that wealth came from the Amazon shares she received after her 2019 divorce from Jeff Bezos. She has since given away roughly three-quarters of those shares.

Scott has repeatedly described her fortune as something she feels responsible for sharing. In a 2019 essay, she wrote that she had received a “disproportionate amount of money to share” and pledged to keep giving thoughtfully rather than waiting.

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Scott became one of the world’s wealthiest women after her 2019 divorce from Jeff Bezos, receiving a 4% stake in Amazon as part of the settlement. That stake formed the foundation of the fortune she would later use to build one of the largest philanthropic efforts in the world.

She went on to pledge to give away the majority of her wealth, gaining recognition for the scale and speed at which she has distributed her fortune.

Since 2020, Scott has given away about $26 billion. With her current net worth estimated at roughly $33 billion to $37 billion, her donations represent a substantial portion of the wealth she accumulated.