Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott
Billionaire MacKenzie Scott, who once had to fix broken teeth with denture glue because she couldn’t afford a dentist, has made a record $20 million donation to a charity working to address the youth mental health crisis in the US.The donation to the nonprofit Active Minds is the largest single gift in the charity’s history. It comes at a critical time for American teens, with data from Fortune magazine showing that nearly one in five teens now report thoughts of self-harm.Scott’s donation is huge compared to the charity’s usual financial resources. Active Minds reported annual revenue of approximately $9.9 million through fiscal year 2025, meaning this single donation more than doubles the amount the organization raised during that year.He is now worth an estimated $36 billion according to Forbes, and has spent the past seven years donating an average of nearly $10 million a day.
Remember the burden of poverty before endless wealth
Scott’s giving style is influenced by the financial hardships she experienced when she was younger. While studying at Princeton, she managed a demanding academic schedule while also working 30 hours a week doing manual labor.At one point, she was found crying on campus because she feared she would have to leave the university after she failed to pay $1,000 in tuition fees.
A friend later arranged a loan that allowed her to complete her degree.
Jenny Tarkenton, Mackenzie’s roommate at Princeton, loaned her $1,000
Her financial hardship also affected her basic health care. She once used over-the-counter dental adhesive to hold broken teeth together because she couldn’t afford treatment. A local dentist later noticed her condition and treated her for free.The pressures of those difficult years also affected her writing. In a May 1990 letter published in the Princeton Alumni’s Weekly, Scott thanked her mentor, acclaimed author Toni Morrison, for giving her “therapy and breathing lessons” while helping her stop worrying so much about revising and finishing her writing.
Driving in the early days of Amazon in a borrowed car…
Years after graduating, Scott was still living a modest life as she helped build Amazon with her then-husband, Jeff Bezos. In 1994, Bezos left his high-paying job on Wall Street, where he was earning the equivalent of $1.5 million to $2 million a year in today’s money, to take a chance on the growing Internet.Scott fully supported the decision and later said she “can’t wait to jump in the car.” During a five-day trip over a July weekend, the couple drove 2,000 miles across the United States from Texas to Seattle in a 1988 Chevy Blazer.While Scott drove most of the trip, Bezos sat in the passenger seat writing the first 30-page draft of Amazon’s business plan on his laptop. Using an Excel spreadsheet, he predicted that the bookstore’s online sales would reach $70 million by 2001. According to journalist Brad Stone, Amazon actually earned more than $3 billion that year.The trip requires careful budgeting. When the Motel 6 in Shamrock, Texas, was fully booked, they stayed at a simple roadside motel called the Rambler, where the room was so dirty that Scott refused to take off her shoes.After moving into a garage in Bellevue, Washington, Scott became Amazon’s first accountant. She handled the company’s bookkeeping, wrote employee paychecks, managed early job interviews, and even negotiated shipping contracts within the local Barnes and Noble bookstore.Amazon went public in 1997 and later grew into a $3 trillion company spanning cloud computing, streaming, and artificial intelligence (AI).
She parted ways with Bezos in 2019. After that, Scott took a large stake in Amazon stock, which she has steadily sold to support charitable causes around the world. It has also faced backlash from billionaires including Tesla CEO Elon Musk for offering “freebies.”
New Era funding for youth and mental health support
The $20 million grant will help Active Minds expand its mental health programs across hundreds of schools and universities in the United States.
The nonprofit, headquartered in Washington, D.C., currently reaches 4.5 million young people through a network of more than 500 student-led chapters.Active Minds said the funding would help create a “new era of mental health” by facilitating access to support in local communities and reducing the stigma surrounding mental health challenges.
Photo – Facebook/Active Minds
“This transformative investment allows us to build a future where every young person knows that mental health is a vital part of their overall well-being,” the organization said.The charity was set up after a personal tragedy. Alison Malmon founded Active Minds while she was a junior at the University of Pennsylvania. Her eldest and only sibling, Brian, fell into severe depression and psychosis while studying at Columbia University.Brian kept his deteriorating condition hidden from his friends for years before he was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. He later died by suicide.Malmon started the organization as a small student group to encourage open conversations about mental health. Financial statements from 2024-25 show the charity has grown to include 13,485 official chapter members, with student-led events directly reaching more than 400,000 young people with life-saving suicide prevention information.