Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.

Reuters/Joshua Roberts

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos may be the richest person, but he isn’t well-known for his billion-dollar donations and philanthropic efforts like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

Additional light was recently shed on Bezos’ charitable donations after news that his ex-wife, MacKenzie Bezos, had signed the Giving Pledge, in which participants promise to give away more than half of their wealth during their lifetimes or in their wills.

Among the five richest people in America, Jeff Bezos, who has a net worth of $114 billion, is the only one who hasn’t signed on to the philanthropic commitment.

It’s not clear why Bezos has avoided joining the Giving Pledge, an initiative started by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett almost a decade ago. His charitable history has “remained largely a mystery,” The New York Times wrote in 2017 after Bezos posted a “request for ideas” for philanthropy on Twitter.

A nonprofit bearing Bezos’ last name, the Bezos Family Foundation, has given millions of dollars to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. However, the fund is run entirely by the Amazon CEO’s parents and hasn’t received contributions from Bezos himself, according to Inside Philanthropy.

Additionally, Bezos had never appeared on the annual list of America’s 50 largest donors until 2018, when he took the top spot with the launch of a $2 billion fund for education programs for the homeless. Still, that donation represented only about 1.3% of his net worth at the time, according to Quartz.

Here are all the major donations Bezos is known to have given to charity since becoming a billionaire in 1997:

August 2011: $10 million to the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.


David Ryder/Getty Images

Bezos’ $10 million grant was used to establish the museum’s Bezos Center for Innovation, which highlights companies that have gotten their starts in Seattle — including Microsoft, Costco, Boeing, and UPS.

The innovation center was officially unveiled in October 2013. The Museum of History and Industry is just a few blocks from Amazon’s headquarter near downtown Seattle.

July 2012: $2.5 million to Washington United for Marriage, a same-sex-marriage advocacy group.


AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos, who were still married at the time, donated $2.5 million to a group called Washington United for Marriage. The group was raising funds for a campaign for Referendum 74, a state referendum that would legalize same-sex marriage in Washington if approved.

The donation from the Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos doubled the organization’s campaign fundraising, according to CNN Money. The referendum appeared on the ballot in November 2012 and was approved.

January 2013: $500,000 to Worldreader, a nonprofit that provides access to e-books and e-readers.


Reuters/Gus Ruelas

Bezos pledged half a million dollars to Worldreader, a nonprofit that supplies children in underdeveloped countries with access to digital books and e-readers. Bezos’ donation went toward boosting the organization’s programs in African countries, including Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, and Rwanda.

May 2016: $1 million pledge to match donations to Mary’s Place, a homeless nonprofit in Seattle.


Amazon

May 2017: $1 million to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.


inda Davidson / The Washington Post via Getty Images

January 2018: $33 million to TheDream.us, a nonprofit that funds college scholarships for immigrants.


Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Statue Of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation

Bezos donated enough to fund the college education of 1,000 “Dreamers,” immigrants who were brought to the US as children. The $33 million donation came during a time when President Donald Trump attempted to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — known as DACA — under which these children were protected from deportation and allowed to work legally in the US.

Bezos said the donation was a nod to his father, Miguel Bezos (pictured above), who fled to the US from Cuba when he was 15. He later went on to attend college and work as an engineer at Exxon.

September 2018: $10 million to With Honor, a PAC for electing military veterans.


Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for WIRED25

Bezos’ first major political donation was a $10 million donation to With Honor, a bipartisan PAC that backs military veterans running for election to Congress.

September 2018: $2 billion Bezos Day One Fund launched to support education programs for homeless families.


YouTube/Amazon News

The Bezos Day One Fund is named after the Amazon CEO’s longstanding “Day 1” way of thinking. Bezos said he planned to use the charity to support homeless families and launch education programs in underserved communities.

The first round of donations, announced in November, went toward organizations fighting family homelessness. The fund’s website hints at more donations to come, including some that will be used to launch “a network of high-quality, full-scholarship Montessori-inspired preschools in underserved communities.”

More:

BI Graphics
Giving Pledge
Jeff Bezos
Philanthropy

Chevron iconIt indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options.


Close iconTwo crossed lines that form an ‘X’. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.


Check mark iconA check mark. It indicates a confirmation of your intended interaction.

Read More