MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire former wife of Jeff Bezos, is donating $60 million to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, a nonprofit group that helps improve disaster resilience and recovery in struggling communities that otherwise lack the resources to rebuild.
The grant is an early signal that philanthropists and foundations may be stepping up to fill the void expected as the Trump administration scales back the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
It also follows other recent donations by Ms. Scott to groups that help low-income, minority students. Earlier this month, she gave $42 million to 10,000 Degrees, which works to make college accessible to low income students, who are often people of color. And she gave $40 million to the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. She has also supported efforts to fight global warming with a $10 million gift announced last week to support the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts, where scientists are studying climate solutions.
Founded in 2010, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy focuses on helping “historically marginalized and at-risk populations.” Its chief executive, Patricia McIlreavy, said the donation from Ms. Scott serves as an endorsement of its focus on how floods, fires and other hazards can worsen social, health and economic disparities.
Ms. Scott previously donated $13 million to the center for initiatives concerning Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine, but her latest grant can be used however the center’s leaders see fit, Ms. McIlreavy said.
The disaster philanthropy center works with local nonprofit groups to make “high-impact” grants in disaster-weary regions, and it helps other philanthropic organizations with strategic planning around disaster-related gifts. For example, this year it launched a fund with $21 million from North Carolina-based Truist Bank to support Hurricane Helene recovery with a focus on helping small towns and communities that get less attention, and on rebuilding homes while preventing so-called disaster gentrification, when survivors are priced out of their rebuilt neighborhoods.
In recent months, the center has awarded grants to community groups in regions recovering from hurricanes in Florida, Louisiana and North Carolina and from wildfires in Hawaii and California.
Ms. Scott’s gift is a windfall for the center, which is based in Washington, D.C. It is nearly $20 million more than the contributions and grants it reported receiving in 2024, and almost matches its total assets reported last year.
Still, it is a small fraction of the $12 billion a year that FEMA has typically spent on average for disaster relief over the past three decades.
It comes after President Trump stripped any focus on diversity, equity and inclusion in government programs and has sought to deny disaster aid to so-called immigrant “sanctuary” cities. Mr. Trump has at the same time pushed for states to handle all but the largest natural disasters without federal help, and leaders of many disaster-struck communities have said they feel they are on their own.
Ms. McIlreavy said the center seeks to transcend the politics and bureaucracy that can interfere with disaster response and focus on the need that exists across the country and around the world as extreme weather hazards and damages surge.
“We believe in equitable recovery, and that means leaving no one behind,” she said. “That could be a white farmer in Iowa who has lost a tractor in a derecho storm, or it could be a Black homeowner in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, whose house was knocked out by a tornado.”
The costs of disasters, including wildfires, storms and floods, have accelerated as the planet warms and more people move into areas that are prone to disasters. Climate change, the result of humans’ burning of fossil fuels, is linked to increases in some types of extreme weather, including rapidly intensifying hurricanes, flooding downpours, persistent droughts and fast-moving wildfires.
In many cases, recovery from such extreme events has strained communities for months or years. For example, more than a year after Hurricane Helene inundated western North Carolina with floodwaters, communities there are “still reeling,” said Elizabeth Brazas, CEO of the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina.
And in parts of Northern California where it has been years since the last major fire, communities continue to try to build resilience against the next blaze, said Rhea Suh, CEO of the Marin Community Foundation in the Bay Area. “Just because a disaster happens doesn’t mean 180 days later it’s not still happening in some way in our communities,” Ms. Suh said.
Ms. Scott pledged to give away her fortune after her 2019 divorce from Mr. Bezos, the Amazon founder.
Ms. McIlreavy said the center is still in the early stages of planning out how to use the gift. It could boost the organization’s reserves for several years to come, she said, or perhaps go toward an endowment. “It allows us to dig deeper in what we were already doing,” she said.
Scott Dance is a Times reporter who covers how climate change and extreme weather are transforming society.
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