MacKenzie Scott, billionaire ex-wife of the founder of Amazon, supports Craft3, a nonprofit lender founded in Ilwaco.

Craft3, a nonprofit community lender, has been given $15 million by philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.

In a statement, Bruce Brooks, Craft3’s president and interim CEO, described the gift from Scott’s Yield Giving as an “affirmation of Craft3’s mission to build a thriving, just and empowered Pacific Northwest.”

This is the second time Scott, ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has donated to Craft3, which was founded in Ilwaco in 1994 and has an office in Astoria.

In 2020, she gave Craft3 $10 million, which chief marketing officer Carl Seip said was used to help invest more than $200 million in loans for businesses in Astoria and other communities across Oregon and Washington state and helped the organization increase accessibility.

“We undertook a really thoughtful process to make our lending more equitable, increasing dollars lent to entrepreneurs of color,” he said. “And stood up a new technical assistance business-coaching program that now serves more than 100 clients.”

Seip said Craft3’s mission is to give communities opportunities for capital, which means making loans to small businesses that can’t access funding through other means and homeowners looking to improve repairs in their septic systems or improve their home energy efficiency.

In the coming weeks, the leadership committee for Craft3 will begin discussing how best to use the new $15 million donation and maximize the money’s impact on local communities.

“We’re really thrilled and humbled by the recognition,” Seip said. “And for the second time, the entire team is really committed to doing the hard work to invest the money wisely and reinvest in the communities we serve.

“We’ve been a part of the Lower Columbia since our start, and we know as we look at how to program these funds and deploy them, there will be impacts across communities we serve in the Northwest.”

Scott’s Yield Giving has donated more than $17.3 billion to over 2,300 nonprofits.