Philanthropy & The Single Girl

Women’s History Month Salute to Women Philanthropists

Fact: Forty-three percent of the nation's top wealth holders are women. Women control 51%, or $14 trillion, of personal wealth in the U.S. and are expected to control $22 trillion by 2020.

Fact: Female headed households are more likely to give, and give more, to charity than male-headed households across all types of charitable causes.

Example: MacKenzie Bezos, who received more than $35 billion in her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has signed the Giving Pledge, making a commitment to give more than half her fortune to charity or philanthropic causes. "We each come by the gifts we have to offer by an infinite series of influences and lucky breaks we can never fully understand," Bezos said. As one of the wealthiest women in the world — and the ex-wife of a billionaire who has not signed the Giving Pledge — Bezos is the most prominent name on the list of new signatories to the pledge. She's currently the executive director of the Bystander Revolution, an anti-bullying group she founded in 2013.

Example: Oprah Winfrey- She has donated millions of dollars to various charities and organizations, with most of her money going to three foundations: The Angel Network, The Oprah Winfrey Foundation, and The Oprah Winfrey Operating Foundation. Some examples of the projects are The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa and Rebuilding the Gulf Coast. The Oprah Winfrey Foundation is run exclusively by Oprah Winfrey. (You can’t donate to this organization, because it’s funded by an endowment.) The Oprah Winfrey Operating Foundation was initially created in 2007 to give money towards the Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. Through these organizations, Winfrey has truly established herself as an altruistic person. She has extended her arm and influence far and wide throughout the world.

Example: Laurene Powell Jobs-The widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs, is one of the world’s most important philanthropists, overseeing a sprawling media, political, and charitable empire called Emerson Collective. And she plans to direct Emerson to give away her $28 billion in assets during her lifetime or shortly after her death — rather than aiming to fund a perpetual vehicle that doles out small amounts of cash until the end of time. “I inherited my wealth from my husband, who didn’t care about the accumulation of wealth,” she told the New York Times. “I’m not interested in legacy wealth buildings, and my children know that. If I live long enough, it ends with me.” Powell Jobs is drawing some ideological distance from the foundation-by-inheritance model.

You go girls!

CEO & Executive Consultant