Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ex-wife MacKenzie Scott has given the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) a “transformational” $70 million donation aimed at bolstering historically Black colleges and universities, the organization said.
The organization said the $70 million gift will go into the UNCF Members Pooled Endowment Fund, set up to strengthen the “long-term financial health” of all 37 private UNCF member HBCUs. This fund is a key part of the larger $1 billion campaign.
The goal of the pooled endowment fund is to raise $370 million, which would mean roughly a $10 million share in each school’s endowment.
This donation comes after Scott’s $10 million gift in 2020, which went toward strengthening the UNCF’s emergency reserve fund, the organization said. UNCF President and CEO Michael L. Lomax said he nearly “lost it” when he heard about the new gift which is seven times larger than her 2020 contribution.
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Reflecting on this, Lomax told to ABC, “She is Saint MacKenzie Scott.” He added, “She is rewriting the book on philanthropy, not just in this country, but in the world.”
UNCF said Scott’s donation moves them “significantly closer” to their target, giving each private member HBCU a $5 million share from the fund. Lomax added that Scott has set a new standard, and he is now urging other philanthropic organizations to step up.
“I think it’s a challenge to them to do more and to give more,” Lomax told ABC News. “We [HBCUs] often say we do more with less. Now it’s time for us to do more with more,” he said.
The Associated Press was the first to report Scott’s latest donation. So far, Scott has given a total of $80 million in unrestricted support to the UNCF, the largest private scholarship fund for historically Black colleges and universities in the country.
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Lomax further added that, “[Scott] is choosing institutions like HBCUs, which have been starved by major philanthropists, with few exceptions in the past, and she’s setting a new standard.”
Over the years, Scott, who was previously married to Bezos, has built an estimated net worth of over $30 billion. She has pledged to give away most of her fortune to charities, including organizations like the UNCF.
This week’s donation is one of Scott’s first disclosed gifts of 2025 and adds to the $1 billion UNCF Capital Campaign, which was launched in 2021 to give historically Black colleges and universities the resources they need.
Lomax said the 2023 affirmative action ruling, which ended race-conscious admissions, has put a new “spotlight” on the importance of HBCUs. He added that he remains “guardedly optimistic” about the recent financial support they have received. “I thought that, you know, maybe the support will go down, when, in fact, what’s happening is that the support is going up,” Lomax said.