Two Beverly Hills mansions, jointly valued at roughly 55 million dollars, now belong to the California Community Foundation, after they were donated by billionaire Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.
Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is one of the world’s most philanthropic people.
“We are one of many, many organizations who have benefitted from the generosity of Ms. Scott,” California Community Foundation’s Jarrett Barrios said.
Barrios said the foundation plans to sell the property and use the money elsewhere. Every year the foundation donates tens of millions of dollars to education, immigration, health and housing. Scott’s donation will mostly help with housing.
“The bulk of it is going to support our housing portfolio. That is programs that invest in creating more affordable housing but also support tenants efforts to stay in their housing,” Barrios said.
This is Scott’s second major donation to the California Community Foundation. In 2021 she donated $20 million to establish the LA Arts Endowment Fund which will support diverse, small to mid-size arts organizations in the Los Angeles area.
She’s not the only billionaire philanthropist making news as of late. In mid-September Patagonia’s founder announced he’s giving away the company to fight climate change.
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California Community Foundation’s Paula Valle said they receive state and federal funding, but much of their success is due to donations – both small and big – from private people like Scott.
“We have had many donors throughout California Community Foundation’s history who have had an impact,” Valle said. “We are a community foundation which means in many ways we operate like a non-profit. We need donors to come to us and give in order for us to go back out and give grants to the community.”
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“For this year alone we can talk about being able to give more than $440 million in grants to non-profits because that’s what we were able to do,” Valle added. “Specifically in housing we were able to give out about 24 million dollars.”
The housing and homeless crisis is one of the biggest, most visible issues facing Southern California, and with a generous donation from Scott the region may be a bit closer to a solution.
“We’re very excited to get on the job right away because we don’t want to waste any time getting this money out into the community because it is needed,” Barrios said.
