(Bloomberg) -- Jeff Bezos’ parents Mike and Jackie Bezos gave $185.7 million to the Aspen Institute this week to establish a new center focused on young people.
The gift is the biggest the Bezos Family Foundation has ever made and the largest-ever donation to the Aspen Institute, according to a spokesperson for the Washington, DC-based nonprofit. The new project, called the Center for Rising Generations, will use $175 million of the gift to create a permanent endowment.
The center will focus on civic engagement and leadership development, supplement the Aspen Institute’s existing portfolio of youth programs, and support new initiatives and partnerships, according to a statement from the nonprofit. It will be run by Kaya Henderson, the former chancellor of Washington’s public schools.
The parents of the world’s second-richest person owe their wealth to being very early investors in Amazon.com Inc. They gave Jeff $245,573 in 1995, and while it’s unclear how much Amazon stock they still own, their charitable activities indicate they’ve done very well.
In 2022, Mike and Jackie, separately from the foundation, committed $710.5 million to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. As of the end of that year, the Bezos Family Foundation had $113 million in assets, according to the most recently available tax form. That year, Mike and Jackie donated shares of Amazon that would be worth $168 million at today’s prices, taking into account a June 2022 stock split.
The foundation has made 766 grants since it was founded in 2003, according to its website. Most of those gifts have been focused on early learning and adolescence.
Jeff Bezos, who has a net worth of $193.4 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has also focused some of his philanthropic dollars on young people, setting up a network of tuition-free Montessori-inspired preschools across the US.
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