this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
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Billionaire philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott announced Tuesday she is giving $640 million to 361 small nonprofits that responded to an open call for applications.

Yield Giving’s first round of donations is more than double what Scott had initially pledged to give away through the application process. Since she began giving away billions in 2019, Scott and her team have researched and selected organizations without an application process and provided them with large, unrestricted gifts.

In a brief note on her website, Scott wrote she was grateful to Lever for Change, the organization that managed the open call, and the evaluators for “their roles in creating this pathway to support for people working to improve access to foundational resources in their communities. They are vital agents of change.”

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[–] KJ118@lemmy.world 165 points 8 months ago (6 children)

I know general consensus is fuck billionaires, and I'm not exactly desputing that, but I work in IT for a rural school district and a donation from her foundation allowed the district to set up a foundation and now 50 of our students can attend a local community College on full scholarship each year.

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 127 points 8 months ago (16 children)

To be fair, she took a billionaire’s (Jeff Bezos) money and is now redistributing $38b of his wealth. She’s one of the good ones.

[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 113 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

It was her money too, as she was a core founding member of Amazon, but until their divorce it was locked up in shares.

It does sure seem like she wanted to give a lot of it away, probably for a long time. I'm glad his midlife crisis is helping so many people.

[–] Bipta@kbin.social 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

If you look into the matter, she very much helped to earn that money. It's hers, not taken from anyone.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

Nobody actually earns that much, and I doubt that her labor directly created that much real value.

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[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 48 points 8 months ago (2 children)

She's strategically working on no longer being a billionaire.

[–] gnate@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

And we could do the same without the billionaires. Since they don't create value, we can skip the part where the money goes to them, and directly support our communities. Eliminate billionaires as a drain on our society.

[–] 0x0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 8 months ago

I see both sides of this. I agree with you in principle, but practically the US can't get its shit together. Would you trust the government with an influx of cash? They'd probably turn it into weapons.

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 26 points 8 months ago

The thing I like most about what she is doing unlike other billionaire philanthropists is that her money is given with no strings attached.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Sure, it's great, but I'd rather them not have to beg for it and instead take the money they're leaching from society by force. They should just be forced to give that money in taxes, not have the schools beg for scraps.

[–] Eldritch@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago

This is the answer. Philanthropy is great and all. But how awesome would it be if philanthropy wasn't needed. And who tends to make philanthropy necessary? The wealthy and billionaires taking far more than their share.

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

Whilst commendable, that is not the job of billionaires.

Other countries have free access to adult education. Some are even paid to attend

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[–] catsarebadpeople@sh.itjust.works 45 points 8 months ago (7 children)

Every billionaire's priority should be to not be a billionaire anymore. She's doing a great job so far both trying to get to that goal and being an example of what we should expect from these people.

As a side note it should not even be up to them. Billionaires should be taxed enough that it's not possible to be a billionaire but in the absence of an effective government I'm glad she's doing this instead.

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[–] fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 35 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Sadly, I suspect some assholes will be along any moment to tell us all about how evil she is and how she's infecting kids with 5g or some such.

[–] sethw@kbin.social 46 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Billionaire philanthropy is undemocratic and governments just need to tax better and put that GDP towards things we prioritize together as nations

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

But where will we get the classic "Billionaire saves orphans from orphan crushing machine" that never follows up on who built the orphan crushing machine?

Instead we'd just get the classic news headline "Imagine the worst person you can, we found that guy and he's getting free money from the government welfare program" Which I would add barely happens to most CEOs and billionaires today (they do own most the press, after all)

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[–] PunnyName@lemmy.world 22 points 8 months ago (7 children)

She needs to deposit 10k only my bank account. That'll take care of my rent for 6 months.

[–] Paddzr@lemmy.world 36 points 8 months ago (2 children)

It's crazy how little it would take to change all our lives.

Mere 2k would put me so far ahead, it's basically 2 years worth of saving.

And then you try to comprehend what a billion is like and it's intangible. A million we can imagine, it's a fancy ass house. But a billion? I simply can't imagine how much money that is.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 41 points 8 months ago

ya know the difference between a billion and a million?

About a billion.

[–] vladmech@lemmy.world 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

20 fancy ass houses in every single state in the USA. I’d never thought of it that way until now and that’s obscene.

[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 32 years.

[–] idiomaddict@feddit.de 8 points 8 months ago

Coffee break, vacation, career, two thirds of the time humans have been around: thousand, million, billion, trillion

(Roughly)

[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago (4 children)

She needs to be my sugar mommy. That will take care of my whole life.

[–] PunnyName@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)
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[–] Dkarma@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago

Trump:hi it's me your non profit

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 9 points 8 months ago

A lovely human being. She made the right life choices.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Leave this person to get it on with this.

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