Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Friday, December 19th.

Today on Forbes, Mackenzie Scott's latest Gifts make her America's third most generous philanthropist.

Earlier in December, billionaire philanthropist Mackenzie Scott published her yearly announcement of philanthropic gifts. Her donations totaled

$7.2 billion, the largest yearly amount since she began publicizing her giving in 2019.

Scott's latest announcement brings her total lifetime giving to $26 billion. That makes her one of

the three most generous donors in the U.S.

Two far richer men, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, are the only Americans who have donated

more to philanthropic causes, doling out an estimated $65 billion and $48 billion,

respectively, in their lifetimes. Scott's latest set of gifts

means that by Forbes's calculations, she's now apparently given more in dollar terms

than Michael Bloomberg and George Soros, though Soros has still given away the highest

percentage of his wealth. Scott is second by that metric.

Forbes estimated Bloomberg had given away $21.1 billion as of last January, and Soros' Open Society

Foundations lists total donations of $24.2 billion. In an essay accompanying her gift announcement, Scott wrote, quote,

this dollar total will likely be reported in the news, but any dollar amount is a vanishingly

tiny fraction of the personal expressions of care being shared into communities this year.

Scott's donations went to approximately 200 publicized organizations, with a focus

on higher education, including historically black colleges and universities, plus programs

supporting Native and other underserved students, and climate, including the Global

Methane Hub, Climate Works Foundation, and an organization called Forests People Climate.

While Scott is known for one-time no-strings-attached gifts to grassroots organizations,

the majority of this year's grantees are organizations that have received funding from her in the past.

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