• Melinda French Gates and MacKenzie Scott are among the richest people in the world
• Some changes at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation since the separation announcement
• MacKenzie Scott takes a different approach to philanthropy
Even the super-rich are not immune to breakups when it comes to marriage. In July 2019, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and his partner MacKenzie Scott announced their separation after 25 years of marriage. In one fell swoop, Scott became one of the richest women in the world. As can be seen from media reports, she received a multi-billion dollar Amazon share package in the course of the divorce. MacKenzie Scott’s fortune is currently worth $51.4 billion, according to Forbes.
Melinda French Gates has also been one of the divorced super rich since August 2021. Here the marriage to Microsoft founder Bill Gates lasted 27 years. She also received different packages of shares in the course of the divorce, her fortune is estimated at 11.3 billion US dollars in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Melinda French Gates is an old hand in charity
But while MacKenzie Scott only discovered philanthropy through her divorce, Melinda French Gates has been part of her life for quite some time. In 2000, she and her husband founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has approximately $50 billion in assets under management, making it the largest nonprofit organization in the world in the hands of individuals.
The foundation is a massive organization with more than 1,500 employees. In addition to the Microsoft founder and his ex-wife, Berkshire Hathaway CEO and billionaire Warren Buffett was also a member of the Foundation’s board for years, but announced in June 2021 – a month after the separation announcement – that he was leaving Bill and Melinda Gates entirely – Withdraw Foundation. Melinda French Gates has also announced that she no longer wants to donate her assets exclusively to the foundation, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. As early as 2015, French Gates founded his own investment company, Pivotal Ventures, which aims to “advance social progress in the United States to enable more people to live better lives,” as the company’s website says.
At the end of January 2022, the CEO of the Gates Foundation, Marz Suzman, announced in a statement that the Microsoft founder and his ex-wife would join Strive Masiyiwa, Baroness Nemat (Minouche) Shafik, Thomas J. Tierney and himself on the board would be supported. Together they want to bring in “independent and different perspectives” in order to “strengthen the management of the foundation”.
Both benefactors committed to the Giving Pledge
MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates both signed up to the Giving Pledge, a campaign launched in 2010 by the Gates couple and Warren Buffett. The aim of the initiative is to make wealthy people promise to donate the majority of their wealth to charity during their lifetime or shortly after their death.
A new approach at Melinda French Gates in the future?
Both benefactors have already delivered on that promise on a large scale, using different approaches. Melinda French Gates recently penned a new letter for the Giving Pledge, reaffirming her commitment to charity. In it she writes: “My approach to philanthropy has always been driven by data and I believe it is important for philanthropists to set ambitious goals and measure our progress against those goals”. If an organization is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the financial resources are usually tied to specific goals and purposes. The organization is therefore subject to certain conditions for which it may use the donated funds.
In this sense, it is surprising that French Gates continues in her letter: “However, I have learned that it is just as important to have trust in the people and organizations with whom we have partnerships and to let them make decisions as they do Defining success for yourself. Philanthropists are generally more helpful to the world when we stand behind a movement than when we try to lead our own.” This could be an indication that French Gates intends to apply different criteria to its charitable work in the future.
The MacKenzie-Scott Effect
MacKenzie Scott is already pursuing such an alternative approach. Since the split, she has donated $8.6 billion to more than 780 organizations, according to Forbes. That’s more than any other person has given to charity in such a short amount of time. Scott refrains from founding a foundation that will take over the administration of the donations and does not make any specifications for the organizations receiving the donations as to how the financial resources should be used.
What’s more: As the billionaire explained in an article on the Medium platform, she wants to refrain from stating exactly what sums she has given to which organizations in the future, as she does not want the hype surrounding her to distract from the actual organizations: “That’s why I’m not posting the totals I’ve given away since my last post. I want to give each of these incredible teams a chance to speak for themselves if they choose, with the hope that if they do this, the media focuses on their commitment rather than mine”.
However, a few days after this post, she backtracked with an addendum after being criticized for a lack of transparency. In it, she promised to continue to publish at intervals of “about twice every 12 months” what sums she had donated to which organizations.
As Jeannie Sager from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University in the USA told the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, it is quite possible that MacKenzie Scott’s no-strings-attached approach could also be adopted by other philanthropists: “We call it the MacKenzie-Scott effect: Many philanthropists are increasingly wondering why there is a need for such extensive reporting by recipients.” In this sense, charity is changing from a donor-centric system to a recipient-centric model.
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