Billionaire philanthropist gives $10M donation to help Georgia small businesses
MacKenzie Scott attends the 2018 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)
ATLANTA - Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has given a huge donation to help support Georgia small businesses.
Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos who helped him build the company, donated $10 million to Georgia-based nonprofit ACE.
The gift, which became available immediately for the nonprofit, will help with the organization's five-year plan, which involves lending $300 million to 1,500 small businesses across the state and will provide over 100,000 hours of business advisory services.
"This came completely out of the blue," said ACE's founder and CEO Grace Fricks. "We’re proud of the accomplishments of each of our clients — the more than 2,600 small business owners across Georgia who’ve received ACE’s affordable loans — and grateful for this recognition of the ACE team’s hard work."
Fricks launched the nonprofit 24 years ago.
In the last five years, Scott has taken part in The Give Pledge, a promise that billionaires make to donate most of their wealth. Last year, she announced on the Giving Pledge website that she had donated $2.1 billion to 360 organizations, bringing her donations to more than $16 billion since 2019.
"My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful. It will take time and effort and care. But I won’t wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty," she wrote on the website in 2019.
In 2020, Scott donated an unrestricted $15 million gift to Clark Atlanta University - the single largest private gift in the university's history.