he 24th annual Philanthropy 50, the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s list of America’s biggest donors, is based on gifts and pledges of cash, stock, and land to nonprofit organizations in 2023.
The Chronicle talked to dozens of charities, philanthropists, and their representatives to find out more about large donations that were made publicly last year, as well as the philanthropy of big donors who gave quietly. However, not all philanthropists publicly disclose details about their giving, and they are not legally required to do so.
Michael Bloomberg gave $3 billion to charity last year to take the top spot in the Chronicle’s 24th annual ranking of America’s biggest donors. Read more:
Gifts made to donors’ family foundations and donor-advised funds were counted; however, disbursements from those grant-making vehicles were not included in our rankings to avoid double-counting.
The Chronicle counts only gifts and pledges that donors make to organizations with charity or foundation status under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
MacKenzie Scott is among the notable absences on the Philanthropy 50 list. While it is possible that she made gifts to her donor-advised fund that could have earned her a spot on the Philanthropy 50, she and her representatives declined to provide such information to the Chronicle. Scott gave more than $2.1 billion to charities last year through her Yield Giving fund, but she continues to decline to provide details about how much money she is funneling into the grant maker.
Also not on the list is Ross Brown, the founder of Cryogenic Industries, an industrial equipment manufacturer; and Daniel Gilbert, who founded Rocket Mortgage and is chairman of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Brown announced one of the biggest gifts to science last year, when he pledged $400 million through his family foundation and a donor-advised fund to the California Institute of Technology to launch the Brown Institute for Basic Science. Gilbert and his wife, Jennifer, gave $375 million through their Gilbert Family Foundation to Henry Ford Health to build two new medical centers in the Detroit area.
Some gifts from America’s biggest donors don’t appear on the current Philanthropy 50 even if they made a contribution to a nonprofit last year. That’s because the Chronicle’s rankings count multiyear pledges only once, as a lump sum in the year the commitment was made.
Warren Buffett claimed the No. 4 spot on this year’s Philanthropy 50 for money he put into his family foundation and the foundations of his three children in November, but several large sums he gave to those same foundations in June, as well as to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are not counted. That is because Buffett’s June gifts were annual installments toward a set of multibillion dollar pledges he announced 18 years ago that were already counted on the 2006 Philanthropy 50.
Here’s how much Buffett gave to those foundations in June as payments toward his 2006 pledges, which he has now exceeded:
- More than 10 million shares of class “B” Berkshire stock valued at more than $3.5 billion to the Gates Foundation. To date, he has contributed nearly $39.3 billion. That is $3.2 billion more than the roughly $36.1 billion he pledged to the grant maker in 2006.
- More than one million shares valued at nearly $354 million to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation — his family foundation that is named for his first wife, who died in 2004. He has contributed more than $3.7 billion, or about $100 million more than the approximately $3.6 billion he originally pledged to the fund.
- More than 730,000 shares (valued at $247.8 million) apiece to the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which funds agriculture, clean-water, and anti-poverty programs; the NoVo Foundation, co-founded by Peter Buffett and his wife, Jennifer, which promotes alternative ways of living, such as local agriculture, food co-ops, and worker-owned businesses; and daughter Susan Buffett’s Sherwood Foundation, which backs social-justice work and early-childhood education.
- Warren Buffett originally promised 350,000 shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock to each of his three children’s foundations and then doubled the original pledge in 2012. To date, he has given the three foundations approximately $2.3 billion each toward the original pledge.
