Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancée Lauren Sánchez have given away $100 million to a retired Navy admiral and actress Eva Longoria as a part of the billionaire’s annual prize to people who make important contributions to society.
The Determined Housewives star and Invoice McRaven, a veteran and former chancellor of the College of Texas System have been awarded $50 million every to assist these in want.
Bezos—who has a internet value of round $200 billion—launched the Braveness and Civility Award in 2021 to help philanthropists.
Van Jones, a lawyer and CNN commentator, and the lauded chef and humanitarian José Andrés have been the primary recipients of the prize.
“We want unifiers and never vilifiers,” Bezos commented on the rationale for launching the award, earlier than revealing the inaugural prize winners.
“Individuals who argue exhausting and act exhausting for what they really consider, however all the time with civility and by no means advert hominem assaults. And sadly, we reside in a world the place that is too usually not the case.”
Since then, nation singing icon Dolly Parton took residence the 2022 award, after donating $1 million towards Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine analysis and books to thousands and thousands of youngsters by way of her basis Creativeness Library.
How will Eva Longoria and Invoice McRaven use the cash?
Twelve years on from embodying Wisteria Lane’s housewife Gabrielle Solis, Longoria has gone on to turn into a director, the CEO of her personal manufacturing firm, UnbeliEVAble Leisure and a political activist.
In 2021, she based The Eva Longoria Basis “to assist Latinas construct higher futures for themselves and their households by way of schooling and entrepreneurship,” based on its web site.
The charitable physique achieves that by way of quite a lot of applications for aspirational Latinx, together with mentorship and entry to funding.
Along with her portion of the award cash, Longoria advised Elle that she plans to “proceed doing what I’ve been doing” with the Eva Longoria Basis and Eva’s Heroes, a charitable group inside the basis that helps the particular wants group.
Longoria stated that her charitable focus is on girls as a result of they “are the changemakers in households.”
“Once you assist a lady, she helps her household. After which once you assist households, you enhance communities. And once you enhance communities, you possibly can enhance nations,” she added.
In the meantime, McRaven—who oversaw the 2011 raid that killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden—has pledged to make use of the cash to develop teaching programs for future army leaders and the kids of deceased veterans, in addition to psychological well being help for many who serve.
“The chance to make use of this unbelievable reward to assist veterans and their households is the dream of a lifetime and I’m so grateful to Lauren and Jeff for giving me this chance,” he stated in a press release to CNN.
Bezos’ says he’s on a mission to offer away his wealth
The world’s second-richest man (behind solely LVMH’s boss Bernard Arnault, based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index) didn’t hand out the charitable award final yr, however he’s been on a wider mission to offer away nearly all of his wealth throughout his lifetime.
Since stepping down as Amazon’s CEO, Bezos has elevated his philanthropic efforts and has dedicated $10 billion to local weather change efforts, by way of an initiative known as the Bezos Earth Fund.
Final yr, he gave out $117 million in grants to help homeless households by way of his Bezos Day 1 Households Fund, bringing his whole donations to just about $640 million.
Nonetheless, critics have previously been skeptical about simply how philanthropic the billionaire actually is.
“He’s dedicated a big amount of cash. However it nonetheless feels very, very half-baked,” Benjamin Soskis, who researches philanthropy for the City Institute beforehand advised Time.
Plus, Bezos nonetheless hasn’t signed the Giving Pledge.
Launched by Invoice Gates, Melinda French Gates and Warren Buffett in 2010, the marketing campaign encourages billionaires from throughout industries to decide to freely giving no less than half of their fortunes to charitable causes.
To this point, it’s been signed by 242 billionaires together with Elon Musk and even Bezos’ ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott.
