Nov 21, 2023- Forbes- by Phoebe Liu
Two years out from his tenure as Amazon CEO, the billionaire has flown to space, moved to Miami and stepped up his philanthropy. The latest round of charitable donations brings his total giving to an estimated $3 billion, just under 2% of his net worth.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the world’s third-richest person, will give $118 million to nonprofit groups helping families experiencing homelessness, he announced on Tuesday.
This year’s grants are the sixth round of awards from the Bezos Day One Families Fund, which will donate the funds to 38 nonprofits in 23 states—including the states where Bezos owns property: New York, Hawaii, Washington D.C., California, Washington and Florida, where he recently moved. Grants range from a $150,000 gift to Family Promise of Cheyenne, Wyoming, to approximately a dozen $5 million gifts to organizations including American Indian Community Development Corporation in Minneapolis and BronxWorks in New York.
“It’s a privilege to support these orgs in their inspiring mission to help families regain stability,” Bezos wrote in a post on Instagram captioning a video where his partner Lauren Sánchez praised the fund’s efforts. In the video, Ellen Magnis, the CEO of Texas-based 2019 grantee Family Gateway, which connects families to housing assistance and operates emergency shelters, says Bezos’ funding has “kept 2,200 families from coming into shelter.”
Bezos founded the Day One Fund in 2018 as a $2 billion commitment with his former wife MacKenzie Scott. The fund has so far given $640 million to organizations in 48 states. Grants from the Day One Families Fund, the homelessness-focused portion of the Day One Fund, are “no strings attached,” meaning they have no restrictions on how the money is used once it reaches the recipient nonprofits, a relatively uncommon philanthropic approach for which Scott is well known.
Bezos primarily does his charitable giving through his Day One Fund and the Bezos Earth Fund, a similar multi-year, multi-billion commitment, although that fund is larger—with $10 billion pledged. The Day One Fund awards a yearly set of grants to combat homelessness through its families-focused fund but also helps launch and operate tuition-free, Montessori-inspired preschools in underserved communities.
The latest gifts bring Bezos’ total giving to nonprofit groups to $3 billion, Forbes calculates, which is just under 2% of his current $166 billion net worth. Although Bezos stepped down from his CEO post at Amazon two years ago, he is still the company’s largest individual shareholder—he owns just under 10% of the stock–and is the chairman of the board. Some have criticized his gifts focused on homelessness and climate as hollow given the big e-commerce company’s record on labor and environmental issues.
Bezos has never specified whether he’s funding the Bezos Day One Fund grants (or any of his other grants, for that matter) with cash gifts, donations of his Amazon shares or something else, though it appears that he’s using Amazon stock, since he donates shares periodically. Last week, Bezos gave 1.67 million shares of Amazon worth $560 million to “non-profit organizations,” according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings; an Amazon spokesperson did not yet respond to a request to comment on which groups received the stock gifts.
Since Amazon went public in 1997, Bezos has given away about $4.7 billion worth of Amazon shares and sold $27 billion worth of the company’s stock; some of his gifts of shares may have gone to donor-advised funds–essentially charitable giving accounts that provide generous tax deductions.
Earlier this year, Bezos and Sánchez announced the creation of a $100 million Maui Fund to provide relief after the wildfires that devastated parts of the Hawaiian island, where Bezos owns a bayside mansion. His Earth Fund has also doled out a continuous stream of smaller grants this year, with its total donations now nearing $2 billion.
Bezos and Sánchez told CNN last November that they would give away the majority of their wealth within Bezos’ lifetime. Although the couple has not signed the Giving Pledge, a non-binding agreement to give away at least half of one’s fortune, they have stepped up their rate of giving in recent years.
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