MacKenzie Scott is giving away billions
This week MacKenzie Scott has announced a third round of major charitable donations, saying she has given away $2.7 billion (£1.9bn) to 286 organisations. In a blog post, Scott revealed that she wanted to help “high-impact organizations in categories and communities that have been historically underfunded and overlooked”.
Scott became one of the world’s richest people following her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and has been a committed philanthropist ever since. She made her first round of donations in July 2020, giving $1.7 billion (£1.2bn) to 116 charities she described as “organizations and leaders driving change”. This was followed by donations totalling $4.2 billion (£3bn) in the second half of the year. Even after these, Scott is still worth $53 billion (£37.5bn) according to Forbes.
Scott isn’t the only super-rich person putting their vast fortune to good use, particularly in the fight against COVID-19. Click or scroll through to find out where the world’s super-rich are donating their fortunes during these uncertain times and beyond.
All dollars are US dollars unless otherwise stated.
Oprah Winfrey
In the ultimate rags-to-riches story, Winfrey went from a difficult upbringing in Mississippi to becoming a media tycoon and the world’s first Black female billionaire in 2003. Her big break came when she hosted a TV show called People Are Talking, which led her to launch her own hit series, The Oprah Winfrey Show, in 1986. The TV host, actress and producer now helps to remove barriers to education and healthcare through her Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation, as well as through her Leadership Academy in South Africa, a school for girls which aims to free pupils from the cycle of poverty.
In 2018, she partnered with grocery store chain Kroger to donate one million meals to charity Feeding America, which has a network of food banks across the country. In May 2020, it was announced that the media mogul would be giving $12 million (£9m) in coronavirus relief grants to “under-served communities” in a number of cities in which she has lived, including: Chicago; Baltimore; Nashville, Tennessee; Milwaukee and Kosciusko, Mississippi. The grants contributed towards local grassroots organisations as Winfrey told the Hollywood Reporter: “I’m not opposed to big organisations donating money, but I always like to do the on-the-gound grassroots stuff myself.”
Azim Premji
Currently one of the richest people in India, Premji started out selling cooking oil and laundry soap, before taking charge of Wipro, shifting his focus to software. At the beginning of the 21st century he was one of the world’s richest people.
Premji won the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in 2017, where he was cited for playing a key role in improving access to education in India through the Azim Premji Foundation. The charity has helped to improve more than 350,000 schools across the country, as well as helping to reduce child malnutrition and support other non-profit organisations. In response to coronavirus, Wipro Ltd., Wipro Enterprises Ltd. and the Azim Premji Foundation have offered a combined donation of Rs 1,125 crore ($150k/£120k) towards medical services and mitigating the human impact of the disease.
Richard Branson
Branson hardly took an obvious route to success, dropping out of school aged 16 and starting a mail order record company, but it might surprise you to learn that this same company went on to become the multibillion-dollar Virgin Group. He’s pledged to give away half his wealth through Bill Gates’s Giving Pledge, as well as supporting projects from improving LGBTQ rights and eliminating nuclear weapons to fighting climate change and reforming drug policy.
Branson has become a controversial figure during the pandemic, receiving criticism back in March 2020 for suggesting Virgin Atlantic staff take eight weeks’ unpaid leave, although the company later confirmed in a statement that the cost of this leave would be spread over six weeks’ worth of pay and that the move would prevent job losses. On the flipside, the businessman’s rocket company, Virgin Orbit, partnered with researchers at the University of California Irvine and the University of Texas at Austin to create and mass produce ventilators for US hospitals.
Jack Ma
Jack Ma is best known for cofounding and heading up Alibaba, one of the world’s largest e-commerce businesses. The billionaire, with a net worth of $45.9 billion (£32.5bn), stepped down as chairman of the business in September 2019 in order to focus on philanthropy. Since then, he has set up his own philanthropic organisation, the Jack Ma Foundation.
In March last year, the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation announced a donation of two million masks, 150,000 test kits, 20,000 sets of protective gear and 20,000 face shields to be sent to four southeast Asian countries. The foundation has since made a similar-sized donation to 10 other countries in Asia. On top of this, the organisation gave $2.15 million (£1.7m) to an Australian institution to contribute to the development of a vaccine, as well as donating test kits and protective gear to African countries and the US.
JK Rowling
It’s hard not to romanticise Rowling’s success story: she went from being a single mother living on the edge of poverty to becoming the world’s richest author via the globally-renowned Harry Potter franchise. No longer a billionaire because she’s donated so much of her fortune, there’s no denying her philanthropic nature.
She has set up Lumos, a charity which reunites children with parents, with the aim of shutting orphanages across the world by 2050. In May last year, the author donated £1 million ($1.3m) towards charities helping homeless people and domestic abuse survivors during the pandemic; she has also created a “Harry Potter at Home” online hub which will help children stay amused while at home during the pandemic. However, Rowling has also attracted criticism for her online comments towards transgender people, after taking issue with a tweet which used the phrase “people who menstruate” instead of “women”, which led stars from the Harry Potter movie franchise, including Daniel Radcliffe and Eddie Redmayne, to speak out against her.
Chuck Feeney
An Irish-American businessman, Charles “Chuck” Feeney was a pioneer in the duty-free shopping industry. His company, Duty Free Shoppers Group (DFS), started when he and a college classmate began selling alcohol and tobacco to servicemen in the 1950s. By the mid-1990s, Feeney was earning $300 million (£190m) a year.
Despite his wealth, Feeney held onto some surprisingly frugal habits – living in a modest apartment in San Francisco, wearing a $15 (£12) plastic watch and routinely flying economy. He finished giving away his entire fortune in September last year, thought to be $8 billion (£6.4bn), much of which is through his Atlantic Philanthropies charity, whose projects aim to reduce inequality across the world. When the foundation ran out of cash thanks to its charitable donations over the years, Feeney acheived his goal of “giving while living”.
George Soros
Frequently cited as one of the most successful financiers in history, the Hungarian-American investor used his expertise to launch the Quantum Fund, which has generated more than $40 billion (£32bn) since its inception in 1973.
Soros has openly supported liberal and progressive causes, including fighting for freedom of expression, fair governance, justice and equality through the Open Society Foundations, which he founded in 1984. It’s been reported that Soros has given more than $32 billion (£23.9bn) since the foundation’s conception. In April last year, the hedge fund manager pledged to donate more than $130 million (£97.2m) towards combating coronavirus worldwide, half of which went to the US, with other funding focused on mitigating effects in countries in the Global South.
Warren Buffett
Often thought to be one of the most successful investors of all time, you might be surprised to learn that Warren Buffett got rejected from Harvard Business School. Gaining his master’s from Columbia instead, he went on to run Berkshire Hathaway, which owns more than 60 companies.
Along with Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, Buffett set up the Giving Pledge, asking the super-rich to give away their fortunes to good causes. He’s pledged to give away over 99% of his fortune, much of which will go towards health, development, policy, growth and equality initiatives through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In July last year, it was reported that the finance mogul would be donating a further $2.9 billion (£2.2bn) in Berkshire Hathaway stock towards four family foundations and the Gates’ organisation.
Sara Blakely
Just over 20 years ago, Spanx was born when Sara Blakely was getting ready for a party and longed for the perfect undergarment to give a smooth look. By cutting the feet off a pair of tights, she came up with the idea of body-shaping underwear and tights. This transformed into a hugely successful company.
Blakely now passes on her expertise and in 2020 was even a guest Shark on US reality TV show Shark Tank, often supporting businesses with female founders. She also supports female entrepreneurship through the Sara Blakely Foundation, which funds initiatives from coding workshops to mentorship and grants for social entrepreneurs. She pledged $5 million (£3.7m) towards helping female-led businesses hit by the pandemic. She hoped to help 1,000 women-fronted enterprises with $5,000 (£3.7k) each. In a slightly more unusual form of donation, Blakely also offered to help brides by loaning them her wedding dress “to ease their plans during this time”, as she detailed here in an Instagram post.
Michael Bloomberg
The 20th richest person on the planet according to Forbes’ Bllionaires List 2021, Bloomberg began his career in investment banking, founding a company named Innovative Market Systems (renamed Bloomberg L.P. in 1987). The information provider had more than 325,000 subscribers worldwide by 2015, and Bloomberg’s personal wealth currrently stands at $59 billion (£41.8bn) according to Forbes.
Having served as mayor of New York City for three terms, Bloomberg launched a campaign for the US presidency, spending more than $1 billion (£748m) of his own money in attempt to become the Democratic party nominee. He stepped down from the race on 4 March 2020. In the current pandemic, Bloomberg has donated $40 million (£32m) to “prevent and slow its spread around the world, particularly in Africa”, although some have criticised the size of this donation in comparison to his self-funded political campaign.
Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison made his megabucks in the tech industry, creating a database which he named Oracle – the software company we know today. He is currently the seventh richest person in the world with a net worth of $101.7 billion (£72bn).
In 2010 it emerged that Ellison had signed the Giving Pledge, joining the ranks of fellow billionaires. Despite having made numerous other charitable donations, Ellison said: “Until now, I have done this giving quietly because I have long believed that charitable giving is a personal and private matter.” On 24 March last year, the New York Times reported that Oracle was providing software to the White House to study unproven coronavirus treatments, including two drugs used to treat malaria. The effectiveness of both drugs is currently still being studied by the FDA.
Andrew Forrest
Making his fortune in the mining industry, Australian Andrew Forrest has a current net worth of $21.2 billion (£15bn). He started out working as a stockbroker before jumping ship to the mining business, taking the helm of Fortescue Metals Group in 2003. During his time at Fortescue, Forrest was commended for his work in creating jobs and training for indigenous communities. After stepping down in 2011, he has focused on philanthropy through the Minderoo Foundation, which aims to create parity for indigenous communities, improve education across Australia and end modern slavery.
In 2019, Forrest donated AU$655 million ($482m/£361m) to various charities, making it Australia’s largest-ever donation, according to Forbes. Along with his wife Nicola, the billionaire has given AU$520 million ($381m/£284m) to his Minderoo Foundation to focus on the battle against the coronavirus pandemic, which includes flying in medical equipment and testing supplies from China.
Patrice Motsepe
Making history when he became the world’s first Black billionaire in 2008, Patrice Motsepe is the founder and chairman of South African mining firm African Rainbow Minerals. A notable philanthropist, Motsepe hit headlines in 2013 when he donated half of his family’s wealth to charity through the Motsepe Family Foundation, which funds education, healthcare, entrepreneurial incentives and women’s development, among other causes.
In May last year, the businessman announced that his group of companies would give 1 billion rand ($57m/£43.7m) to fight the coronavirus pandemic in South Africa. The foundation said that the money would go towards buying sanitisers, disinfectants and personal protective equipment to help the healthcare system.
Giorgio Armani
Fashion designer Giorgio Armani made his fortune at fashion house Armani, which started out as a menswear brand but has since branched out into accessories, perfumes, make-up and sportswear. He has a current net worth of $8 billion (£5.7bn) according to Forbes.
Gautam Adani
Ports tycoon Gautam Adani made his fortune through controlling India’s largest port, Mundra Port. His company Adani Group has diversified into logistics, resources, energy, agriculture and defence, and Adani is currently the second richest person in India with a $66.3 billion (£47bn) fortune.
On 29 March last year, the businessman revealed in a Tweet that he would be donating Rs 100 crore ($13.3m/£10.7m) to the emergency fund created by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (pictured) to help battle coronavirus in India. The Adani Group also manufactured 120,000 face masks to help the cause.
Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates
In 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen launched Microsoft, where Gates remained as CEO until 2000, helping to secure his place as one of the key drivers of the personal computer revolution. He is one of the richest people in the world, but arguably also one of the most generous. Through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates and his soon-to-be ex-wife Melinda French Gates have funded college tuition for 20,000 young people, as well as pledging $10 billion (£7.7bn) to the development and delivery of vaccines to impoverished countries a decade before this pandemic hit. They have also launched a $5.5 billion (£4.2bn) polio campaign, which has helped to eradicate the disease almost entirely.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had already donated a total of $350 million (£261m) towards the development of a COVID-19 vaccine when it was announced in November that the foundation would allocate an additional $70 million (£52m) towards the distribution and delivery of a vaccine to low-income countries. If former President Trump’s threat to stop US funding of the World Health Organization (WHO) had taken place (President Biden reversed the decision before it came into effect), Gates would have become its biggest donor. Gates hopes his funding and support of the WHO will help to lay the groundwork to produce coronavirus vaccines that will be available worldwide.
Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have pledged to donate 99% of their fortune towards their charity, the Chan Zuckerberg initiative, which supports various non-profit organisations. Among the causes they have supported, the couple pledged $25 million (£18.7m) to fight the spread of Ebola in 2014, while Zuckerberg has partnered with Bill Gates on education and climate change initiatives in the past.
Last April, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Zuckerberg and Chan donated $13.6 million (£10.2m) towards studying the disease within San Francisco’s Bay Area, as part of a nine-month research project run by UC San Francisco, Stanford University and the non-profit Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. Like Jack Dorsey, Zuckerberg has recently had to testify remotely before US Congress over whether Facebook did enough to curtail fake news in the lead-up to the US election.