MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America’s $19.2 billion in megagifts final 12 months
Despite wanting to maintain her gigantic philanthropy quiet, MacKenzie Scott’s giving retains making a splash.
Of the $19.2 billion value of megagifts made by donors in 2025, Scott’s giving represented one-third, in keeping with information supplied to Fortune from Giving USA and the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy in June. Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, had her banner philanthropic 12 months in 2025, when she donated about $7 billion, which introduced her cumulative giving to $26.2 billion in simply 5 years throughout hundreds of organizations centered on housing, DEI, catastrophe restoration, and lots of extra causes.
Other 2025 megadonors included Michael Bloomberg ($4.3 billion), Bill Gates ($3.7 billion), Warren Buffett ($1.34 billion), and Susan and Michael Dell (almost $1 billion). These megadonors are a part of the bigger philanthropic engine within the U.S., which totaled a whopping $617.2 billion in 2025, in keeping with a report printed by Giving USA and IU’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy launched Tuesday. This included philanthropic donations from people, bequests, foundations, and companies to U.S. charities. The whole is a 5.7% bounce from the earlier 12 months.
“It was a optimistic 12 months for charitable giving, with nearly all classes of recipient organizations reaching strong or higher progress on the combination stage,” Gabe Cooper, vice chair of Giving USA Foundation and founder and CEO of Virtuous, mentioned in a press release. Some of the group sorts that obtained essentially the most funding embody faith, human companies, training, well being, transnational affairs, and humanities and tradition.
Despite Scott’s excessive generosity in 2025, the Chronicle of Philanthropy didn’t recognize her on its list of the top 50 donors this year. That’s due largely to Scott’s quiet nature of giving. She is notoriously under-the-radar along with her donations, by no means personally in search of press protection for her presents and infrequently providing insights into the donations.
“MacKenzie Scott is among the many notable absences on the Philanthropy 50 checklist,” in keeping with the Chronicle. “While it’s potential she made presents to her donor-advised funds that might have earned her a spot on the Philanthropy 50, she and her representatives declined to supply such data to the Chronicle.”
But Scott doesn’t actually take part in philanthropy for the popularity, and possibly that’s the purpose. Much of her giving was impressed by variety acts from her previous, like her school roommate giving her $1,000 so she wouldn’t have to drop out and her dentist providing her free dental work when he knew she couldn’t afford it.
“It is these ripple results that make imagining the facility of any of our personal acts of kindness inconceivable,” Scott wrote within the Dec. 9 essay. “The potential of peaceable, non-transactional contribution has lengthy been underestimated, typically on the premise that it’s not financially self-sustaining, or that a few of its advantages are exhausting to trace. But what if these imagined liabilities are literally belongings?”
Plus, giving simply feels good, she wrote.
“Generosity and kindness interact the identical pleasure facilities within the mind as intercourse, meals, and receiving presents, they usually enhance our well being and long-term happiness as nicely,” she wrote.
Following her divorce from Bezos (who has donated far much less of his internet value than Scott over his lifetime), Scott signed the Giving Pledge, promising to present away nearly all of her internet value. She’s steadily chipped away at that, however as a result of power of Amazon shares she obtained upon her divorce, her net worth still sits at nearly $37 billion.
A model of this story was printed on Fortune.com on June 25, 2026.
More on MacKenzie Scott:
- MacKenzie Scott has donated greater than $26 billion—but it surely’s barely made a dent in her net worth due to the facility of Amazon shares
- MacKenzie Scott has given away $26 billion and infrequently speaks publicly. Now she’s releasing a novel—however you received’t discover it on Amazon
- MacKenzie Scott gave away $7.2 billion in only one 12 months. That’s greater than Jeff Bezos and most different billionaires have donated in their lifetimes
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
