MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, once used glue to repair a broken tooth because she couldn’t afford a dentist. Now she’s donating $20 million to support the mental health of troubled teens
Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, who once had to use denture glue to repair her broken teeth because she couldn’t afford a dentist, has donated a record $20 million to a charity dedicated to solving America’s youth mental health crisis.The donation to the nonprofit Active Minds is the largest single donation in the charity’s history. It’s a critical moment for America’s teens, with nearly one in five now reporting thoughts of self-harm, according to Fortune magazine.Scott’s donation is significant compared to the charity’s typical financial situation. Active Minds reported annual revenue of approximately $9.9 million in fiscal 2025, meaning the donation was more than double the amount the organization raised that year.According to Forbes, Scott is now worth an estimated $36 billion and has donated an average of nearly $10 million a day over the past seven years.
Remember the weight of poverty in the face of endless wealth
Scott’s approach to giving was influenced by the financial hardship she experienced in her youth. While studying at Princeton University, she completed a rigorous academic schedule while working 30 hours a week at a manual job.At one point, she was found crying on campus because she feared she would have to drop out because her tuition was less than $1,000. A friend later arranged a loan that enabled her to complete her degree.
Mackenzie’s Princeton roommate Jeanne Tarkenton lent her $1,000
Her financial difficulties also affected her basic health care. Unable to afford treatment, she used over-the-counter denture adhesive to hold her broken teeth together. A local dentist later noticed her condition and treated her free of charge.The stress of those difficult years also affected her writing. In May 1990, Scott published a letter in Princeton Alumni Weekly, thanking her mentor, renowned author Toni Morrison, for providing her with “healing and breathing lessons” while helping her stop worrying about revising and completing her writing.
Early Amazons drove borrowed cars…
Years after graduation, Scott was still living a modest life, helping to found Amazon with her then-husband, Jeff Bezos. In 1994, Bezos quit his high-paying job on Wall Street, where his annual salary was equivalent to $1.5 million to $2 million today, to venture on the ever-growing Internet.Scott fully supported the decision, later saying she “couldn’t wait to jump in the car.” During the five-day trip over the July holiday weekend, the couple drove 2,000 miles across the country from Texas to Seattle in a borrowed 1988 Chevrolet Blazer.Scott drove most of the trip while 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 by 2001, online bookstore sales would reach $70 million. According to journalist Brad Stone, Amazon’s actual revenue that year was more than $3 billion.This trip requires careful budgeting. When the Motel 6 in Clover, Texas, was booked, they stayed at a shabby motel down the road called the Rambler Motel, where the room was so dirty that Scott refused to take off his shoes.After moving into a garage in Bellevue, Washington, Scott became Amazon’s first accountant. She handled the company’s bookkeeping, wrote employee payroll, managed early job interviews, and even negotiated shipping contracts inside the local Barnes & Noble bookstore.Amazon became a public company in 1997 and has since grown into a $3 trillion enterprise spanning cloud computing, streaming media and artificial intelligence (AI). She divorced Bezos in 2019. Scott has since acquired a majority stake in Amazon stock, which she has steadily sold to support charitable causes around the world. She also faced backlash from billionaires including Tesla CEO Elon Musk for giving away “freebies.”
Funding a ‘new era’ of youth support and mental health
The $20 million grant will help Active Minds expand its mental health programs to hundreds of schools and universities across the United States. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit 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 making support more accessible to local communities and reducing the stigma surrounding mental health challenges.
Image – Facebook/Active Minds
“This transformative investment allows us to build a future where every young person knows that mental health is an important part of their overall well-being,” the organization said.The charity was created following a personal tragedy. Alison Malmon founded Active Minds during her junior year at the University of Pennsylvania. Her older brother and only sibling, Brian, suffered from severe depression and psychosis while studying at Columbia University.Before being diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, Brian hid his worsening condition from friends for years. He later committed suicide.Marmont founded the organization as a student group to encourage open conversations about mental health. Financial figures for 2024-25 show the charity has grown to have 13,485 official chapter members, with student-led campaigns delivering life-saving suicide prevention information directly to more than 400,000 young people.
