Amazon’s Bezos unveils $2 bn charity fund

Washington: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced on Thursday he was creating a philanthropic fund with a $2 billion initial commitment to help homeless families and launch preschools in low-income communities. The world’s richest individual made the announcement on Twitter a year after asking for ideas on how he could use his personal fortune — now estimated at some $163 billion — for charitable efforts. The “Bezos Day One Fund” created by Bezos and his wife MacKenzie will focus on two areas — helping “existing nonprofits that help homeless families” and funding “a network of new, nonprofit, tier-one preschools in low-income communities,” he wrote. For the homeless, grants will be given to organisations “doing compassionate, needle-moving work to provide shelter and hunger support to address the needs of young families,” Bezos said. The fund will also seek to launch and operate “a network of high-quality, full-scholarship, Montessori-inspired preschools in underserved communities,” he wrote. — AFP