FARGO — The first email informing Steve Smith that the YMCA of Cass & Clay Counties had been selected to receive a large gift sounded like a scam, so the nonprofit group’s president quickly deleted it.
Then a second email arrived, again informing Smith of the large gift, and once again he deleted what he thought was a pitch from a persistent scam artist.
A third email arrived, this time with the name of a contact in San Francisco, so Smith texted a colleague with a YMCA in the Bay Area to see if he knew anything about the person.
The response, which came back promptly: the person contacting him was a representative for MacKenzie Scott, a philanthropist and novelist.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know who Ms. Scott is,” Smith replied.
“You might know her as the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos,” he was told. That would be Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon. Scott has pledged to give away her personal fortune.
So a less skeptical Smith called Scott’s representative at the National Philanthropic Trust in San Francisco, and received astonishing news: “She’s decided to give you $10 million.”
Smith wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.
“I said, ‘Excuse me … what?’” when told the money came with no requirements.
“She trusts that you will use the money well,” Scott’s representative told Smith, then asked if he had any questions. “I was a little speechless,” Smith said.
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