Chronicle Insider

Dear Subscriber,

This morning we unveil our Philanthropy 50 rankings of the donors who gave the most to charitable causes in the past year.

Michael Bloomberg gave the most, with more than $3 billion in donations. He’s appeared on the Philanthropy 50 a remarkable 18 times, so at age 82 we’ve been accustomed to his high rankings.

But we wondered about the donors a generation younger who are taking a more prominent role in philanthropy so Jim Rendon interviewed megadonors and those who work with them to understand how they’ll change the next 20 or 30 years of philanthropy.

One thing is clear: Young donors are less interested in giving huge donations to big institutions like universities and hospitals and instead focused on how they can best support causes and movements seeking to create tangible change in the world. Donors on this year’s list, which was compiled by Maria Di Mento with help from Kay Dervishi, focused on a broad range of causes that didn’t get much attention in the past, like fighting antisemitism, advancing artificial intelligence, and supporting women and girls.

Many are willing to focus on problems that might take a decade or more to solve, such as John and Laura Arnold (No. 5). John, who ran his own hedge fund, and Laura, a lawyer, look for policy areas, such as criminal justice and health care, that have been largely ignored and where big breakthroughs are possible.

“It became very clear to us that if we really wanted to address injustice as manifested in the educational system, we needed to really think about the systemic issues that led to that dysfunction outside of the educational system,” Laura Arnold told Jim.

Courtesy of Jon and Mindy Gray

We want to give you all the information you need to prepare for the new generation of donors so we’re holding a special live discussion on March 12 at 1 p.m. Eastern. You’ll have a chance to meet Jon and Mindy Gray, whose donations focus on helping young people in New York City and seeking breakthroughs in breast cancer research, as well as wealth adviser Stephanie Ellis-Smith.

Meanwhile, there’s lots more to read in the new issue. Among the other highlights:

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Eden Stiffman explains why and how foundations are turning to futurism as they set their strategies. In the past, grant makers set strategies for five or 10 years. Now they are looking more long term about how they can get ready for a world they can’t even imagine today. “The bookends have moved in both directions,” Katherine Fulton, a nonprofit strategy consultant, told Eden.

Jim Rendon explores the exodus of nonprofit leaders from the C-suite, as many executives decide they can make good salaries, achieve a great life-work balance, and get treated better working as consultants rather than staff members. While that has been a boost for many nonprofit veterans, the staggering number of departures from leadership roles has prompted a big problem for nonprofits that can’t persuade experienced leaders to take over high-ranking positions.

Rasheeda Childress spoke to lawyers and veteran fundraisers to learn how nonprofits should respond to the wave of donors threatening to withhold their gifts because they are infuriated about how institutions are handling issues like the Hamas-Israel war and diversity, equity, and inclusion. These newly emboldened donors aren’t likely to go away anytime soon, so nonprofit officials need to open communications and prepare for supporters to exert more pressure in gift agreements and beyond.

Ben Francisco Maulbeck, Gihan Perez, and Lori Villarosa of the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity talked to more than 100 foundation staff members and racial-justice organizers and found what they consider significant backsliding since the Supreme Court issued its affirmative-action decision in June. They learned that foundations are eliminating racial-justice funding or censoring grantees who want to talk about their grants to advance equity and call for a return to the bold commitments made during the racial reckoning in 2020.

Of course, there’s much more on our website. And as a subscriber, you have unlimited access to every article we publish.

We also encourage you to sign up for our daily newsletter, Philanthropy Today, so you won’t miss any of our daily offerings, and our weekly roundup, Philanthropy This Week.

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I am extremely grateful to subscribers like you for the support you provide to enable us to produce so much insightful and carefully reported material about the trends shaping the social sector.

Data on big donors isn’t publicized much, so your subscription enables my colleagues to work year-round tracking down contributions that don’t get much attention. It allows our reporters to talk to nonprofits about shifting trends in leadership — and it enables us to seek out advice and opinion columns pegged to timely matters like the ripples of the affirmative-action decision and the donor revolts.

We are always eager to hear how we can serve you better — and I hope if you are learning from our work that you’ll encourage your peers to subscribe.

I hope I’ll see many of you on March 19 when I join the Grand Valley State University center on philanthropy to talk about trends. Along with Don Chen of the Surdna Foundation and Akilah Watson, CEO of Independent Sector, we’ll discuss the center’s report on trends in the nonprofit world — and I’ll draw on all we learned reporting our January issuepointing to developments that are shaping your world.

Enjoy reading our new issue.

Stacy Palmer, CEO and Editor-in-Chief