A billionaire is stepping up where a rumored billionaire didn’t.
MacKenzie Scott, the former spouse of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, donated $4.8 million to the Sonoma-Marin Boys & Girls Club in northern California, part of a massive $281 million contribution to 62 of the organization’s clubs across the country.
The gift, announced last week, will help fill a gap in funds the Sonoma-Marin location had previously expected to receive from a controversial local developer, Bill Gallaher, as the regional outlet The Press Democrat reported last year.
“We still have more to raise but we’re on our way,” Jennifer Weiss, CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Sonoma-Marin, told The Daily Beast.
Weiss emphasized that even though the Gallahers had apparently reneged in 2020 on their promise to fully fund a $16 million new club, the family had still contributed millions of dollars to the organization, while their family bank has provided a low-interest loan that will allow the club to continue construction as it searches for additional capital.
“I feel incredibly grateful to the Gallahers,” she said. “I really enjoy working with them. I’m just focused on all the abundance they’re bringing to us.”
The Gallaher family is highly controversial in the Sonoma area, particularly for their aggressive political spending.
As just one example, last year Bill Gallaher spent more than $1.6 million attempting to recall local district attorney Jill Ravitch, dramatically more than her entire campaign budget. Ravitch’s office had previously secured a $500,000 settlement from Gallaher’s companies following allegations that some employees at his senior living facilities had abandoned elderly residents during a 2017 wildfire. (Ravitch won the recall effort with more than three-quarters of the vote.)
“His reputation has greatly diminished in Sonoma County,” one local council member told The Daily Beast last fall, referring to Gallaher.
Separately, in February Gallaher’s estranged son Marco was charged with allegedly pilfering funds from the family’s bank, Poppy Bank.
Weiss said that the headlines haven’t swayed her opinion. “I understand [there’s] a lot of controversy around them. I read the paper too,” she told The Daily Beast last fall. “[But] we’re so grateful for them.” She added in an interview on Tuesday that she doesn’t “really have an opinion about anyone else’s opinion. I really like them.”
The Gallahers could not immediately be reached for comment.
Weiss said she received a call from one of Scott’s emissaries several weeks ago informing her that the billionaire’s team had vetted her work and wanted to make a “transformational” gift. She had to keep the pledge under wraps until last week, when it was announced as part of the larger set of donations to the Boys & Girls Clubs.
“It was super exciting and shocking,” Weiss said. “It’s just completely unexpected and unbelievably good news.” The money will help fund two construction projects that are collectively estimated to cost almost $30 million.
To date Scott has gifted more than $8 billion of her fortune, though she is still worth $49.4 billion, according to Forbes. Because of Amazon’s rising stock, she is now worth several billion dollars more than at the time of her divorce in 2019.