eff Bezos Announces He’s Donated Nearly $120 Million To Help People Without Housing

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the world’s third-richest person, will give $118 million to nonprofit groups helping families experiencing homelessness, he announced on Tuesday.

This year’s grants are the sixth round of awards from the Bezos Day One Families Fund, which will donate the funds to 38 nonprofits in 23 states—including the states where Bezos owns property: New York, Hawaii, Washington D.C., California, Washington and Florida, where he recently moved. Grants range Grants range from a $150,000 gift to Family Promise of Cheyenne, Wyoming, to approximately a dozen $5 million gifts to organizations including American Indian Community Development Corporation in Minneapolis and BronxWorks in New York.

“It’s a privilege to support these orgs in their inspiring mission to help families regain stability,” Bezos wrote in a post on Instagram captioning a video where his partner Lauren Sánchez praised the fund’s efforts. In the video, Ellen Magnis, the CEO of Texas-based 2019 grantee Family Gateway,which connects families to housing assistance and operates emergency shelters, says Bezos’ funding has “kept 2,200 families from coming into shelter.”

Bezos founded the Day One Fund in 2018 as a $2 billion commitment with his former wife MacKenzie Scott. The fund has so far given $640 million to organizations in 48 states.

Grants from the Day One Families Fund, the homelessness-focused portion of the Day One Fund, are “no strings attached,” meaning they have no restrictions on how the money is used once it reaches the recipient nonprofits.

Bezos primarily does his charitable giving through his Day One Fund and the Bezos Earth Fund, a similar multi-year, multi-billion commitment, although that fund is larger—with $10 billion pledged. The Day One Fund awards a yearly set of grants to combat homelessness.

The latest gifts bring Bezos’ total giving to nonprofit groups to $3 billion, Forbes calculates, which is just under 2% of his current $166 billion net worth.

Ref: Jeff Bezos Announces He’s Donated Nearly $120 Million To Help People Without Housing (forbes)