Jeff Bezos Gives $100 Million to Feeding America’s Covid-19 Response Fund

Jeff Bezos announced on Thursday that he gave $100 million to Feeding America for the Covid-19 Response Fund, which supports the work carried out by 200 food banks. It is the largest gift the 41-year-old anti-hunger organization has ever received and one of the biggest commitments made by an individual donor to a coronavirus relief effort.

Bezos also urged others to make a gift to help food banks do more as demand for aid rises.

“Even in ordinary times, food insecurity in American households is an important problem, and unfortunately Covid-19 is amplifying that stress significantly,” wrote Bezos in an Instagram post announcing the donation. “Nonprofit food banks and food pantries rely in large part on surplus food from a range of food businesses, but during this time of social distancing, restaurants are closed, and many other normal channels of excess food have also shut down. To make matters worse, as supply is dwindling, demand for food-bank services is going up.⁣"

Feeding America’s CEO, Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, said in a statement that the gift will allow the organization to serve millions of people in need.

$10 Billion to Fight Climate Change

Bezos’s donation comes a little over a month after he announced (again in an Instagram post) in February that he was donating $10 billion to fight climate change.

Philanthropy experts have complained in recent years about the lack of transparency that often surrounds the technology entrepreneur’s biggest contributions and about his habit of making big gift announcements on social media that attract a lot of publicity while providing little detail about how the donation will work.

As the world’s richest man (his net worth stands at about $120 billion, according to Forbes), Bezos is no stranger to worldwide disapproval.

For years, many in the philanthropy world griped that he wasn’t giving enough to charity. That changed in 2018 when he and his then-wife, MacKenzie Bezos, announced they were giving $2 billion to create the Day One Fund to house an operating foundation that would run nonprofit preschools in low-income neighborhoods and a grant-making foundation to back charities that help the homeless.

He did not say in his announcement about his gift to Feeding America whether that money is being funneled through the grant-making side of the Day One Fund, which as of December, had announced grants totaling more than $98.5 million to curb homelessness in 23 states.