Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, who once had to fix her broken tooth with denture glue because she couldn’t afford a dentist, has donated a record $20 million to a charity working to address the youth mental health crisis in the United States.The donation to the nonprofit organization Active Minds is the largest single gift in the history of charity. This is a critical time for American teens, with Fortune data showing that nearly one in five teens are now having thoughts of self-harm.Scott’s donation is much larger than the charity’s normal finances. Active Minds reported approximately $9.9 million in annual revenue during the 2025 fiscal year, meaning this one donation is more than double the amount the organization raised during that year.Scott, now worth an estimated $36 billion, has donated an average of nearly $10 million every day over the past seven years, according to Forbes.
Remembering the Weight of Poverty in the Face of Infinite Fortune
Scott’s approach to giving is influenced by the financial struggles he experienced at a young age. While attending Princeton University, he managed a rigorous academic schedule while also performing 30 hours of physical work a week.At one point, she was found crying on campus because she feared she would have to leave the university after falling $1,000 short of paying tuition fees. A friend later arranged for a loan that allowed him to complete his degree.
McKenzie’s Princeton roommate, Jenny Tarkenton, loaned her $1000.
Their financial constraints also affected their basic health care. She once used over-the-counter denture adhesive to fix a broken tooth because she could not afford the treatment. Later a local dentist saw his condition and treated him free of charge.The stress of those difficult years also affected his writing. In a letter published in the Princeton Alumni Weekly in May 1990, Scott thanked his mentor, renowned writer Toni Morrison, for giving him “therapy and breathing lessons” that helped him stop worrying so much about revising and finishing his writing.
Driving in a borrowed car in the early days of Amazon…
Years after graduating, Scott was still living a simple life as she helped build Amazon with her then-husband Jeff Bezos. In 1994, Bezos left his high-paying Wall Street job, where he earned 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 that she “can’t wait to get in the car.” During a five-day trip over the July holiday weekend, the couple drove 2,000 miles from Texas to Seattle in the United States in a borrowed 1988 Chevy Blazer.While Scott drove for 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 online bookstore sales would reach $70 million by 2001. According to journalist Brad Stone, Amazon actually made more than $3 billion that year.The trip required careful budgeting. When the Motel 6 in Shamrock, Texas was fully booked, they stayed at a simple roadside motel 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 employees’ pay checks, managed initial job interviews, and even negotiated shipping contracts inside a local Barnes and Noble bookstore.Amazon became a public company in 1997 and later became a $3 trillion business covering cloud computing, streaming, and artificial intelligence (AI). She divorced Bezos in 2019. After that, Scott received a large portion of Amazon stock, which he has continuously sold to support charitable causes around the world. He has also faced criticism from billionaires, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, for giving out “freebies”.
‘New era’ funding for youth support and mental health
The $20 million grant will help Active Minds expand its mental health programs to hundreds of schools and universities in the United States. The Washington, DC-based nonprofit currently reaches 4.5 million youth through a network of more than 500 student-led chapters.Active Minds said the funding will help create “a new era of mental health” by making it easier for local communities to access support and reducing the stigma surrounding mental health challenges.
Image – Facebook / Active Minds
“This transformational investment allows us to create a future where every young person knows that mental health is an important part of their overall well-being,” the organization said.This charity was created after a personal tragedy. Alison Mallman founded Active Minds when she was a junior at the University of Pennsylvania. His older brother and only sibling, Brian, developed severe depression and psychosis while studying at Columbia University.Brian kept his worsening condition from friends for many years before being diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. He later died by suicide.Malman started the organization as a small student group to encourage open conversations about mental health. Financial figures for the 2024-25 year show the charity includes 13,485 official chapter members, with student-led programs directly reaching more than 400,000 young people with life-saving suicide prevention information.