ST. CLOUD -- Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Minnesota has just received by far its largest donation from a single person.

Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, who is the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has donated $1.5 million to the St. Cloud nonprofit.

Executive Director Jackie Johnson says she first found out about the donation from an email.

It was an email asking me to set up a phone conversation with someone.  The email just suggested to call back, which I thought was a good suggestion.  But they did not identify anybody at that point, so we did not know for sure who it was coming from, or what the amount was.

The MacKenzie Scott Foundation doesn't allow organizations to apply for funds, instead, they seek out organizations they want to support.

Johnson says part of the money will be used to help kick start their $10 million endowment campaign.

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Nationwide, 38 independent affiliates of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America received a total of $122.6 million from Scott.

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