Snap co-founder Evan Spiegel and his wife, supermodel Miranda Kerr, are making a major impact in California after donating millions to help erase $550 million in medical debt for more than 261,000 residents.
The donation was made through Undue Medical Debt, a nonprofit that buys medical debt portfolios at steep discounts and then permanently cancels the debt instead of collecting it.
Evan Spiegel follows MacKenzie Scott’s philanthropy strategy
The donation has drawn attention because it closely resembles the approach used by MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Through her Yield Giving platform, Scott has donated more than $26 billion to over 2,700 nonprofits, focusing on organizations capable of creating large-scale change.
Scott previously donated a combined $80 million to Undue Medical Debt between 2020 and 2022, helping the organization expand its debt-relief efforts.
Her strategy is straightforward: find nonprofits with proven models, provide significant funding and allow them to scale their impact.
How medical debt gets erased
Undue Medical Debt takes advantage of the way unpaid healthcare bills are traded in the United States.
Hospitals can sell large portfolios of unpaid medical debt for a fraction of their original value. Undue Medical Debt purchases qualifying debt at those discounted prices but does not try to collect from patients.
Instead, it abolishes the debt. That means a relatively small charitable contribution can potentially eliminate medical bills worth hundreds of millions of dollars at face value.
More than 261,000 Californians to benefit
The latest campaign is focused on vulnerable Californians, with Los Angeles and San Diego counties receiving some of the largest shares of assistance.
Eligible residents began receiving letters in mid-July informing them that their medical debt had been erased.
“The scale of this gift to Californians is truly astonishing, unburdening over a quarter million families of over half a billion dollars of un-payable medical debt,” said Allison Sesso, president and CEO of Undue Medical Debt.
The donation highlights how Evan Spiegel and Miranda Kerr are adopting a philanthropy model popularized by MacKenzie Scott — using established nonprofits to turn large donations into even larger social impact.
