Bezos makes gifts to Obama foundation and NYU medical center
Former President Barack Obama’s foundation announced Monday
that it has received a $100 million donation from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos,
which it says is the largest individual contribution it has received to date.
Separately on Monday, NYU Langone Health, a medical center
affiliated with New York University, said it has received a $166 million gift
from Bezos and his family.
For its part, the Obama foundation said in a statement that
the gift from Bezos is intended “to help expand the scope of programming that
reaches emerging leaders” in the United States and around the world.
The donation, it said, was also given in honor of John
Lewis, the congressman and civil rights icon who died last year. As part of the
gift, the foundation said Bezos has asked for the plaza at the Obama
Presidential Center, under construction in Chicago’s South Side, to be named
after Lewis. Valerie Jarrett, a former senior adviser to Obama who serves as
the foundation’s CEO, said in a statement that the foundation was “thrilled” by
that idea.
Construction on Obama’s legacy project is expected to cost
about $830 million and to be completed by 2025. In the meantime, the foundation
said it's giving donors the opportunity to “honor and the names of those who
have fought for a more just and equitable world” by naming public spaces in the
future presidential center.
Since stepping down as CEO of Amazon this year, Bezos has
begun to focus more of his attention on philanthropy. NYU Langone, which
received the other Bezos gift announced Monday, said in a statement the
donation will be used to aid “with the health and wellness of diverse
populations” across NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn community, one of the school’s
teaching hospitals and trauma centers in Brooklyn.
Last year, Bezos committed to spend $10 billion by 2030 to
enhance climate change efforts through his Bezos Earth Fund. In recent months,
he has released some details on how he plans to spend that money.
Bezos, whose personal wealth is estimated by Forbes at
roughly $212 billion, had long been questioned about the relatively modest
level of his charitable giving and reluctance to sign The Giving Pledge. The
pledge, developed by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, is intended to persuade the
world’s wealthiest to donate more than half their worth to philanthropic
organizations.
MacKenzie Scott, Bezos' former wife, whose fortune is
estimated at $61 billion, has signed the pledge. Scott has made a splash in the
philanthropy world over the past 17 months by donating $8.7 billion — without
any strings attached — to numerous nonprofits across the country.
No comments