{"id":749,"date":"2026-06-05T07:41:02","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T07:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=749"},"modified":"2026-06-05T07:41:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T07:41:02","slug":"mackenzie-scotts-approach-to-her-26-billion-giving-spree-was-inspired-by-a-book-she-read-in-college-about-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=749","title":{"rendered":"MacKenzie Scott\u2019s approach to her $26 billion giving spree was inspired by a book she read in college about writing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Scott signed the Giving Pledge on May 25, 2019, just months after her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos left her with a roughly 4% stake in the company. But the billionaire philanthropist and author didn\u2019t open her letter with talk of foundations or tax strategy. Instead, she leaned into her roots as a writer drawing a connection between literature and philanthropy.<\/p>\n

Read more Social Security faces a 24% cut in 2032\u2014that\u2019s a $345 billion hit to retirees nationwide, watchdog says<\/a><\/p>\n

She opened her Giving Pledge letter with a memory of pulling Annie Dillard\u2019s The Writing Life<\/em> off a shelf of her old college books, where she found a passage that she had \u201cunderlined and starred.\u201d Dillard\u2019s advice to writers was to not hoard your best material for some later chapter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now,\u201d Dillard wrote, warning that otherwise, \u201cyou open your safe and find ashes.\u201d Scott took the writing advice literally and applied it to her massive fortune.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the past six years, Scott has remained committed to emptying her safe, so to speak. She\u2019s donated more than $26 billion across more than 2,700 gifts through her philanthropic organization, Yield Giving. Her marquee year was in 2025 when she donated an eye-popping $7.2 billion. (That\u2019s more than Bezos and his wife, Lauren S\u00e1nchez Bezos, have given over their entire lifetimes, according to Forbes<\/em> estimates). The publication also named Scott the third-most generous philanthropist in the world this year, noting she has given away 46% of her net worth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

True to the Dillard ethos, she gives fast and lets go. Her philanthropic style is stroking unrestricted checks with no applications, no progress reports, and almost no press.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe practices trust-based philanthropy,\u201d Bob Woodruff Foundation CEO Anne Marie Dougherty previously told Fortune<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Scott drawing inspiration from literature isn\u2019t incidental: She is a novelist herself. Her 2005 debut, The Testing of Luther Albright<\/em>, won an American Book Award. She was trained at Princeton Univeristy, where she studied English and creative writing under Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. Morrison, who served as Scott\u2019s senior thesis advisor. Morrison even later called Scott \u201cone of the best students I\u2019ve ever had in my creative-writing classes.\u201d Scott also worked as a research assistant for Morrison while the author was writing her 1992 novel Jazz<\/em>.<\/p>\n

After Scott\u2019s graduation from Princeton, a recommendation from Morrison also helped Scott land a job at the hedge fund D.E. Shaw (which is where she ultimately met Bezos). Morrison later introduced Scott to her own literary agent, Amanda Urban, and wrote an opening blurb in Scott\u2019s first novel.<\/p>\n

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Scott has, in turn, written her mentor into her philanthropic efforts. Her giving to historically Black colleges and universities surpassed $1 billion this year, and a $3 million donation to Howard University funded the creation of the Toni Morrison Endowed Chair in Arts and Humanities, announced in 2022. It served as an homage to the professor who died in 2019, the same year Scott signed the Giving Pledge pledge.<\/p>\n

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Scott is still a long ways away from fully emptying her safe. Due to Amazon\u2019s stock performance, Scott\u2019s net worth still hovers above $36 billion despite the more than $26 billion she\u2019s given away. But Scott\u2019s letter suggests she\u2019s playing a longer game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful. It will take time and effort and care,\u201d Scott wrote in her Giving Pledge letter. \u201cBut I won\u2019t wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Walmart CEO John Furner worked his way up from the garden center. After 30 years, he\u2019s sharing the one trait that matters most in his job<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott signed the Giving Pledge in 2019 and has since given away 46% of her net worth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mackenzie-scott"],"yoast_head":"\nMacKenzie Scott\u2019s approach to her $26 billion giving spree was inspired by a book she read in college about writing - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=749\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"MacKenzie Scott\u2019s approach to her $26 billion giving spree was inspired by a book she read in college about writing - 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