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Billionaire Jeff Bezos launched the Braveness and Civility Award in 2021 to assist philanthropists. Courtesy of the Bezos Braveness and Civility Awards
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 vital 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 assist 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 need unifiers and not 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 stay in a world the place that is too typically not the case.”
Since then, nation singing icon Dolly Parton took home the 2022 award, after donating $1 million towards Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine analysis and books to hundreds of thousands of youngsters by means 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 grow to be 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 means of training and entrepreneurship,” in response to its web site.
The charitable physique achieves that by means of quite a lot of packages 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 “continue doing what I’ve been doing” with the Eva Longoria Basis and Eva’s Heroes, a charitable group throughout the basis that helps the particular wants neighborhood.
Longoria stated that her charitable focus is on girls as a result of they “are the changemakers in households.”
“If you assist a girl, 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 navy leaders and the youngsters of deceased veterans, in addition to psychological well being assist for individuals 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 an announcement to CNN.
Bezos’ says he’s on a mission to present away his wealth
The world’s second-richest man (behind solely LVMH’s boss Bernard Arnault, in response to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index) didn’t hand out the charitable award final yr, however he’s been on a wider mission to give away the majority of his wealth throughout his lifetime.
Since stepping down as Amazon’s CEO, Bezos has increased his philanthropic efforts and has dedicated $10 billion to local weather change efforts, by means of an initiative known as the Bezos Earth Fund.
Final yr, he gave out $117 million in grants to assist homeless households by means of his Bezos Day 1 Households Fund, bringing his total donations to nearly $640 million.
Nevertheless, critics have up to now been skeptical about simply how philanthropic the billionaire actually is.
“He’s dedicated a big sum of money. 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 date, it’s been signed by 242 billionaires together with Elon Musk and even Bezos’ ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott.
