Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, who once had to fix her own broken tooth with denture glue because she could not afford a dentist, has given a record $20 million donation to a charity working to address the youth mental health crisis in the United States.The donation to the non-profit organization Active Minds is the largest single gift in the charity’s history. It comes at a critical time for American teenagers, with data from Fortune showing that nearly one in five adolescents now report having thoughts of self-harm.Scott’s donation is enormous compared to the charity’s usual finances. Active Minds reported about $9.9 million in annual revenue during the 2025 financial year, meaning this one donation is more than double the amount the organization raised during that year.Now worth an estimated $36 billion according to Forbes, Scott has spent the past seven years giving away an average of almost $10 million every day.
Remembering the weight of poverty before endless fortune
Scott’s approach to giving is influenced by the financial struggles she experienced when she was younger. While studying at Princeton University, she managed a demanding academic schedule while also working 30 hours a week doing manual jobs.At one point, she was found crying on campus because she feared she would have to leave university after falling $1,000 short of paying her tuition fees. A friend later arranged a loan that allowed her to complete her degree.
Mackenzie’s Princeton roommate Jeannie Tarkenton loaned her $1000
Her financial hardship also affected her basic healthcare. She once used over-the-counter denture adhesive to hold a broken tooth together because she could not afford treatment. A local dentist later noticed her condition and treated her free of charge.The stress of those difficult years also affected her writing. In a May 1990 letter published in the Princeton Alumni Weekly, Scott thanked her mentor, the famous author Toni Morrison, for giving her “therapy and breathing lessons” while helping her stop worrying so much about revising and finishing her writing.
Driving the early days of Amazon in a borrowed car…
Years after graduating, Scott was still living a modest 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 she “couldn’t wait to hop in the car.” During a five-day trip over the July holiday weekend, the couple drove 2,000 miles across the United States from Texas to Seattle in a borrowed 1988 Chevy Blazer.While Scott drove for most of the journey, 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 the online bookstore would reach $70 million in sales by 2001. According to journalist Brad Stone, Amazon actually earned more than $3 billion that year.The journey required careful budgeting. When a 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 remove her shoes.After moving into a garage in Bellevue, Washington, Scott became Amazon’s first accountant. She handled the company’s bookkeeping, wrote employee paychecks, managed early job interviews, and even negotiated shipping contracts inside a local Barnes and Noble bookstore.Amazon became a public company in 1997 and later grew into a $3 trillion business covering cloud computing, streaming, and artificial intelligence (AI). She got divorced from Bezos in 2019. After that, Scott received a major share of Amazon stock, which she has steadily sold to support charitable causes around the world. She has also faced backlash from billionaires including Tesla CEO Elon Musk for giving away “freebies”.
Funding a ‘new era’ for youth support and mental health
The $20 million grant will help Active Minds expand its mental health programs across hundreds of schools and universities in the United States. The Washington, D.C.-based non-profit currently reaches 4.5 million young people 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 support easier to access in local communities and reducing the stigma around mental health challenges.
Image – Facebook / Active Minds
“This transformational investment allows us to build a future where every young person knows mental health is a vital part of their overall well-being,” the organization said.The charity was created after a personal tragedy. Alison Malmon founded Active Minds while she was a junior at the University of Pennsylvania. Her older brother and only sibling, Brian, developed severe depression and psychosis while studying at Columbia University.Brian kept his worsening condition hidden from friends for years before being diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. He later died by suicide.Malmon started the organization as a small student group to encourage open conversations about mental health. Financial data from the 2024–25 year shows the charity has grown to include 13,485 official chapter members, with student-led events directly reaching more than 400,000 young people with life-saving suicide prevention information.
