great scott!

3 Austin-area charities part of famed philanthropist's $4 billion endowment

MacKenzie Scott has donated billions to U.S. charities this year, including Meals on Wheels of Central Texas.

Meals on Wheels of Central Texas/Facebook

Author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott (many know her as the former wife of Amazon CEO and billionaire Jeff Bezos) has donated more than $4 billion to charities across the nation — including in Austin and Central Texas.

In a post on Medium, Scott notes that she and her advisers have disbursed some $4,158,500,000 in gifts to 384 organizations across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. over the last four months. This is in effort to “accelerate my 2020 giving through immediate support to people suffering the economic effects of the crisis,” Scott writes.

Scott’s generosity includes these Austin-area organizations and groups:

Meals on Wheels Central Texas
YWCA Greater Austin
Heart of Texas Goodwill Industries (Killeen)

Meals on Wheels received $8 million while YWCA of Greater Austin received $1 million.

"We are humbled by Ms. Scott’s generosity and deeply thankful for the trust she has shown in our agency and the work we do," Adam Hauser, president and CEO of Meals on Wheels of Central Texas, in a statement. "And, we are immensely grateful for our Central Texas donor and volunteer community for their loyal support and for helping us create and sustain an organization worthy of this extraordinary gift.”

Scott also bestowed a record-breaking $50 million to Prairie View A&M University, a historically Black college in Houston, the institution announced on December 15. The gift is the largest one-time endowment in the school’s 144-year history.

Under terms of the donation, the funds can be used at the discretion of the president to support the needs of the university, per a press release. Administrators have chosen to designate $10 million of the total to create the Panther Success Grant Program, an effort to assist juniors and seniors with unpaid balances created by the financial challenges posed by COVID-19, the school announced.

“This is a historic gift for Prairie View, coming at a time when the university had already decided and begun to invest heavily in key areas to strengthen its academic programs and improve student success,” said Ruth J. Simmons, president of Prairie View, in a statement. “The timing of this gift could therefore not be better.”

Simmons adds in a statement that she had been in contact with Scott “about a matter not involving Prairie View,” and thus was “stunned and, for a time speechless” when Scott’s assistant phoned and revealed the donation.

Other Texas organizations Scott donated to include:

Easterseals Rehabilitation Center, San Antonio
Easterseals of Greater Houston
East Texas Food Bank
El Pasoans Fighting Hunger
Feeding the Gulf Coast
Goodwill Houston
Goodwill Industries of Dallas
Goodwill Industries of East Texas
Goodwill Industries of Fort Worth
Meals on Wheels Montgomery County
Meals on Wheels North Central Texas
Southeast Texas Food Bank
South Texas Food Bank
Texas A&M International University
United Way of El Paso County
United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County
YMCA of Greater Houston
YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas
YWCA El Paso del Norte Region
YWCA of Lubbock
YWCA San Antonio

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Austin drops out of top 50 'World's Best Cities' list for 2025

Photo by Tracy Vu on Unsplash

Austin needs to put in some major work to improve its ranking for the 2026 report.

In a surprising turn for the city, Austin is no longer considered one the top 50 best cities in the world, according to a prestigious new report by Resonance Consultancy.

The Canada-based real estate and tourism marketing advisors ranked Austin the 53rd best city worldwide for 2025 in its annual "World's Best Cities" list.

The report quantifies the relative qualities of livability, "lovability," and prosperity for the world's top 100 cities with metropolitan populations of 1 million or more. New to the 10th anniversary edition, Resonance partnered with global market researchers Ipsos to include perception-based data into the rankings, surveying over 22,000 people in 30 countries worldwide to determine "the most desirable places to visit, live or work."

Austin took a 10-place tumble after previously ranking as No. 43 for two consecutive years, starting in 2022.

Resonance refers to its previous "World's Best Cities" reports and its 2024 "America's Best Cities" list – which ranked Austin in the top 15 – when explaining the Texas Capital's successes. The report praised Austin's "progressive spirit," economic prosperity, and the award-winning University of Texas at Austin.

"Austin continues to position itself as a hub of innovation and talent," the report's author wrote. "Over the past decade, the Austin area has become a magnet for major corporations, with Tesla recently establishing headquarters here to join long-standing players like Whole Foods and Dell."

However, Resonance attribute's Austin's dip in the rankings due to rising office vacancy rates and high housing prices.

"The office vacancy rate is climbing as remote work continues to impact the demand for commercial spaces," the report said. "Moreover, housing remains among the least affordable in the U.S., despite home prices having dropped 18 percent from the pandemic highs seen in mid-2022, the most among the 50 largest U.S. metro areas according to Redfin."

Elsewhere in Texas, both Houston and Dallas made major rebounds on the World's Best Cities list for 2025 from the previous year's rankings. Houston had plummeted into an abysmal No. 73 in 2023, but has now skyrocketed back into the top 50 to claim the No. 40 spot. Meanwhile, Dallas moved up from No. 66 in last year's report to its current rank as No. 55.

London held onto its crown as the No. 1 best city in the world for 2025, followed by New York (No. 2), Paris (No. 3), Tokyo (No. 4), and Singapore (No. 5).

austin reports city life