Bezos Family Foundation (BFF)

The Foundation primarily provides grants to education and child development programs, including grants to the left-wing Aspen Institute in support of students who have received immigration-status relief under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and similar “Dream Act” programs, and the group National Parent Leadership Institute, which trains parents to actively identify and challenge perceived racist behavior. ² The Foundation also made a $710 million pledge to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle to fund research into immunotherapeutic cancer treatment, treatment facilities, and infectious diseases. ³

Background

In 1995, Jeff Bezos asked his parents Miguel (“Mike”) and Jackie to invest in his new e-commerce company. They loaned their son $245,573; his siblings Christina and Mark also invested smaller amounts. Amazon is now one of the most valuable companies in the world. Bloomberg News estimates Mike and Jackie’s net worth at $30 billion as of August 2023. ⁴

In 2003, the Foundation became a 501(c)(3) and gave its first grant that year to the Global Nomads Group to facilitate a mutual learning course between students in the U.S. and Iraq. The Foundation now operates four primary programs: Bezos Scholars Programs, Students Rebuild, Vroom, and Mind in the Making. ¹

Programs

In 2005, the Foundation launched the Bezos Scholars Program in partnership with the Aspen Institute. ⁵ The Program recruits 17 high school students each year from the United States and South Africa and provides a trip to the Aspen Ideas Festival, followed by a year of leadership training and support for a social activism project of their choice. The 2023 cohort included students working on left-of-center causes like women’s rights, immigrant rights, and LGBT interests, as well as mental health treatment, international economic development, and other ideas. ⁶

Students Rebuild launched in 2010 to encourage young people to offer support to their peers in Haiti after an earthquake ravaged the Caribbean country. ⁷ Each year, Students Rebuild donates to a chosen cause for every piece of art created by participating students, who also learn from Foundation-provided curriculum on that year’s topic. The United Nations Children’s Fund USA is a major partner in the initiative, receiving some of the proceeds raised for refugee-aid organizations with each postcard created. Since its creation, Students Rebuild has raised $11 million for various humanitarian groups around the world. ⁸

In 2014, the Foundation provided major funding for Vroom, a set of tools and resources developed by the Harvard Center on the Developing Child. ⁹ Vroom gives parents and caregivers information and tips to help them integrate “brain building” and learning into everyday routine. ¹⁰

Mind in the Making (MITM) was created in March 2016, and is named after a best-selling book by Ellen Galinsky, a child psychology and learning researcher. Galinsky is the founder and president of the Families and Work Institute, and chief science officer at the Bezos Family Foundation. MITM offers training and information to parents and caregivers to help them teach young children life skills and executive functions. ¹

Grantmaking

The Bezos Family Foundation gave 766 grants from 2003 to 2023. ¹¹ Recipients included Aliento Education Fund, to support the education of illegal immigrants and DACA recipients;  ¹² Allies for Healthier Systems in Health and Abundance at the University of Washington, to promote alternatives to incarceration for young offenders through Allies for Healthier Systems in Health and Abundance (AHSHAY) at University of Washington; ¹³ Amara, to support general operations at Amara, one of the first child welfare organizations to work with LGBT parents; ¹⁴ Children’s Defense Fund, a left of center organization that works to expand the welfare state, particularly in childcare and education; ¹⁵ Equal Opportunity Schools, an educational organization that promotes critical race theory and anti-racist theory in schools, and discourages merit-based class placement; ¹⁶ Harlem Children’s Zone, formerly a truancy prevention center in Harlem, New York; ¹⁷ Impact Public Schools, which delivers social-emotional and project-based learning to low-income elementary school students in Seattle, Washington; Save the Children Advocacy Grant (SCAN) provides health and education programs to low-income children and their families; their action network describes itself as a political voice for kids and has recently lobbied in favor of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and government-sponsored child care programs (SCAN also endorses state-level candidates who support the expansion of these taxpayer-funded programs); ¹⁸ and the Education Trust, which is a left-leaning advocacy, research, and grantmaking organization based in Washington, D.C. that advocates for more spending on public school systems, offers “educator equity resources,” and devotes a section of its website to promoting “diversity and equity” among teachers. BFF provided funding for the EngagingFirst Study, which examined the impact of social justice and addressing unequal conditions to engage parents and students. ¹⁹

In 2018, BFF gave $3 million to the University of Washington’s College of Education to create the Bezos Family Foundation Distinguished Professorship in Early Learning and award it to Gail Joseph. Joseph’s research areas include Early Childhood, Educational Policy, and Equity Studies. She led the National Head Start Association’s Center for Inclusion Project and received the UW David Thorud Leadership Award in 2018. ²⁰

In 2019, the Foundation funded the National Academy of Sciences report, “The Promise of Adolescence: Realizing Opportunities for all Youth.” The research report made a series of wide-ranging recommendations, including “rectify disparities in resources for least-advantaged schools and students,” “increase access to healthcare and health insurance, in part through Medicaid expansion,”             “take steps to give families of color the same access to in-home assistance to reduce the number of children of color in the child welfare system,” and “promote behavioral interventions outside the justice system for juvenile offenders.” ²¹

In 2023, the Foundation provided support for the National Parent Leadership Institute (NPLI), which equips children and families with training to pursue social activism and also supported a study by the Early Educator Investment Collaborative and Child Trends which connected early childhood workforce issues with systemic racism. ^{2 22}

Narrative 4 received $25 million, its largest gift ever, from the Foundation in October 2023. Narrative 4 encourages storytelling between young people around the world and facilitates social activism through its Empathy into Action program. ²³

Edesia Nutrition, a nonprofit based in Rhode Island that produces specialized foods targeting the different stages of malnutrition, received a $137 million gift from the Foundation in 2023. ²⁴

In January 2024, the Foundation awarded $250,000 to Heritage University in Washington state to award scholarships to undocumented students who arrived in the United States as minors, otherwise referred to as “DACA recipients” or “DREAMers.” ²⁵

Leadership

Mike and Jackie Bezos sit on the board of directors, and their children and children’s spouses all serve as board members. ¹

In July 2023, Dr. John Deasy was named president of the Foundation, after leadership roles at education funder Cambiar, DEI and race development consultant Rethinc, the Gates Foundation, and several urban school districts. ²⁶

Financials

In 2022, the Foundation’s expenses were over $108 million, with $99 million in disbursed grants.  Revenue exceeded $84 million and net assets were $130 million. The Bezoses also donated $115 million in Amazon shares to the Foundation in 2022, and $50 million in shares of Amazon and Uber in 2021. ¹