HIGHLIGHTS
- Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos set up Day One Fund last year.
- Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos gave away $2 billion in charity last year.
- Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos became the world’s highest donors in 2018.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is often criticized for not giving away a part of his wealth for philanthropic causes. But now, the richest man on the planet has emerged as the world's biggest donor.
Jeff Bezos and his soon-to-be ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos donated a total of $2 billion towards helping struggling families via their Bezos Day One Fund, a list of world's top donors compiled by The Chronicle of Philanthropy said.
Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, announced their philanthrophic venture, Day One Fund to help young struggling families and open a network of full-scholarship pre-schools for low-income communities struggling families last September. And while the couple announced their divorce last month, they said they would remain "partners in ventures and projects". In a short span of time, Bezos' philanthropic venture gave away $2billion in charity becoming world's top donors in the year 2018.
Notably, while the Bezos' topped the 2018 list of world's top donors, they were followed by media magnate Michael Bloomberg, who gave away $767 million for arts, education, environment, and health in charity last year. Up in the list on the third spot was e-Bay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, who donated$392 million to promote democracy, citizen activism and other causes
On the other hand, while former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his wife Connie donated $292 million, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen donated $261 million in charity. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan stood at the seventh spot donating $213 million last year.
Interestingly, Bezos' top spot as the world's biggest donor comes at a time when total amount donated towards various charities and causes declined globally. The publication noted that US-based philanthropists donated a total of more than $7.8 billion last year, which is a marked drop from the $14.7 billion the top 50 donors gave away back in 2017.
Apart from other causes, one of the areas that invited a vast amount of donations from the philanthropists in artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies. Stephen Schwarzman gave $350 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for research in the field of artificial intelligence. All said and done, the focus remained on Bezos for finally making a late entry last year.
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