According to a global survey by the United Nations in 2005, an estimated calculation of 100 million people were homeless worldwide. The survey says that as many as 1.6 billion people are devoid of housing and lacked basic facilities to make a living. To help those less unfortunate ones such as the homeless families find life, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos stepped forward to launch $2billion fund assistance for them.
The financial support is indeed a rare instance of the Amazon founder making a pivotal contribution to charity. Previously, he has been criticized for not being a part of American philanthropy and now that he has announced a whopping amount for homeless families and preschool education in economically backward sections of the society. The ‘Day One Fund’, is a joint effort by Jeff and his wife MacKenzie Bezos.
Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man with an estimated wealth of over $150 billion, wrote on Twitter: “MacKenzie and I share a belief in the potential for hard work from anyone to serve others. We all have that capacity.”
According to the, The Day One Fund has two parts. One is that Families Fund (to help the current non-profits and give annual rewards to civic groups involved in “compassionate, needle-moving work” in care for the homeless people) and the next one is the Academies Fund (to expand the network of “new, non-profit, tier-one preschools in low-income communities”).
Jeff strongly believed that the Day One Fund gives him an “opportunity to learn, invent, and improve”. He said,
“We’ll use the same set of principles that have driven Amazon. Most important among those will be genuine, intense customer obsession. The child will be the customer.”
It has been learnt that the fund comes more than a year after Jeff sought out public point of view on Twitter on methods to use his wealth to good effect. “This tweet is a request for ideas,” he wrote.
“I’m thinking about a new philanthropy strategy that is the opposite of how I mostly spend my time — working on the long term. But, I am thinking I want much of my philanthropic activity to be helping people in the here and now — short term — at the intersection of urgent need and lasting impact,” he explained.
