Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott Makes Generous Donation to Minnesota Non-Profit

Every year since 2019, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has made huge donations to non-profits all around the world. I'm sure she's donated plenty of money to non-profits prior to 2019, but 2019 is when the donations started to be publicized.

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Last week, MacKenzie (who is the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos) released an essay where she talks about wanting to make a positive impact on the world and finding organizations to donate to that resonate with her.

With the donations she announced last week, MacKenzie has now donated over $7 billion just in 2025. In total, she's donated over $26 billion since 2019, according to CNBC. That's amazing!

She started publicizing her donations in 2019 because of a pledge she made that year. It's called The Giving Pledge, and it says:

The Giving Pledge is a promise by the world's wealthiest philanthropists to give the majority of their wealth to charitable causes in their lifetime or wills.

Arts Midwest in Minnesota Receives Donation from MacKenzie Scott

One of the organizations that got a donation from MacKenzie is a non-profit called Arts Midwest, which is based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Arts Midwest writes this about their work:

We support, inform, and celebrate arts organizations and creative communities ... we work to strengthen local arts and culture efforts

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The Most Generous Donors in US History

With MacKenzie's total donations of $26 billion since 2019, she's officially the third most generous donor in the US, according to Forbes. Coming in ahead of her are Bill Gates, who has donated $48 billion in his lifetime, and Warren Buffett, who has donated $65 billion.

If you're someone who also wants to make an impact in your community (or maybe even the world) but you're thinking, 'man, I don't have money like those people, would my donation even be good enough?' I can tell you, even a dollar can help a lot! And if you can't donate any monetary amount, volunteers are always needed at different organizations.