Jennifer Wang Forbes
Staff Additional reporting by Angel Au-Yeung, Deniz Cam, Lauren Debter,
Kerry A. Dolan, Noah Kirsch, Chase Peterson-Withorn, Kristin Stoller and Tracy
Wang. Jan 20, 2020
The issue of income inequality is taking center stage in Davos, Switzerland,
this week, as government leaders, corporate executives and more than 100
billionaires including Michael Dell, George Soros and Ray Dalio meet in the ski
town for the 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.
In recent years,
some of the world’s richest have increased their giving, but many are bulking
up their foundations rather than making grants to nonprofits. Those
foundations, in many cases, give out just 5% of their assets a year. To track
who among the world’s wealthiest has put the most money into the hands of
nonprofits—rather than into their own charitable foundations—Forbes partnered
with SHOOK Research of Boca Raton, Florida, to compile data on the biggest givers in America from 2014 through 2018.
Instead of counting money pledged—but not given away—or assets donated to
charitable vehicles like donor-advised funds or foundations that slowly dribble
out grants, Forbes instead counted dollars that actually
reached beneficiaries.
Most of the biggest
givers measured this way are among the richest in the country; 21 of the 25 are
billionaires (including one who died in 2018), while another two are
billionaire families. Berkshire Hathaway magnate Warren Buffett was the top
giver in all five years, parting with $14.7 billion of his fortune, with the
bulk of it going to causes selected by his friends Bill and Melinda Gates’
foundation, through which he donates. The Seattle-based couple are right
behind him as America’s second most generous philanthropists, with an estimated
$9.9 billion in giving over the five-year span; together, the power trio focus
on poverty and development initiatives like polio eradication and HIV/AIDS
treatment. Hedge fund magnate George Soros, who supports a variety of democracy
and human rights initiatives, ranks third with $3.1 billion in grants. Presidential
hopeful Michael Bloomberg is also in the top five, having donated $3 billion of
his fortune to help shut down coal plants, combat the opioid epidemic and
reduce obesity.
Collectively, the
top 25 givers have contributed $51.6 billion to nonprofits from 2014 to 2018
(the last year for which comprehensive data is available), supporting
everything from criminal justice and education reform to scientific research
and poverty alleviation. Of course, one reason that the superwealthy
dominate these ranks is that giving $1 billion for someone worth over $50
billion isn’t such a big deal. For that reason, we’ve also included their
giving as a percentage of their net worth. On that measure, no one has been
more generous than Duty Free Shoppers’ Chuck Feeney, the former billionaire who
pledged to give so much away that he’d die broke and has now pretty much met
that goal. He gave away $1.6 billion in the last five years, and more than $8
billion in total. On the opposite end, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife
Priscilla Chan have so far given 1.2% of their net worth to nonprofits.
See below for the
full list of top givers by dollars donated.
The Top 25 Billionaire Givers (2014-2018)
1 | Warren Buffett
Giving Focus: health,
poverty alleviation
5-Year Total: $14.7
billion
Net Worth: $90
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 16.3%
The investment legend has given away $34
billion of his Berkshire Hathaway stock since 2006—much of it to the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation—as his longtime friends put it to work with poverty
and healthcare initiatives in developing countries. He also supports education,
social justice and women’s rights through foundations run by his children.
2 | Bill & Melinda Gates
Giving Focus: health,
poverty alleviation
5-Year Total: $9.9
billion
Net Worth: $109.6
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 9%
The couple runs the world’s largest
private charitable foundation, with $46.8 billion in assets. The Seattle-based
nonprofit focuses on global poverty, economic development, healthcare and
education, and has doled out $50.1 billion in grants since the inception of its
predecessors in 1994. The foundation’s major initiatives include bringing
contraceptive services to an additional 120 million women in the poorest
countries, and preventing 264 million illnesses through vaccination as well as
polio eradication, all by the end of 2020.
3 | George Soros
Giving Focus: economic
development, human rights
5-Year Total: $3.1
billion
Net Worth: $8.3
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 37.4%
The Hungarian native oversees Open Society
Foundations, a network of more than 20 regional and national foundations in
eastern Europe and beyond. Causes it supports include voter rights and campaign
finance, criminal justice reform, media freedom and human rights
initiatives.
4 | Michael Bloomberg
Giving Focus: climate
change, health
5-Year Total: $3
billion
Net Worth: $59.5
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 5%
The former New York City mayor and current
presidential candidate is especially active on the issues of gun control,
public health and climate change; the latter has included efforts to shutter
coal-powered plants in the U.S. His foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, has
spent more than $1 billion to curb tobacco use over the last decade. In 2018
Bloomberg also announced a $1.8 billion pledge to Johns Hopkins University, his
alma mater.
5 | Walton Family
Giving Focus: education,
environment
5-Year Total: $2.3
billion
Net Worth: $181.4
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 1.3%
Started by Walmart
founder Sam Walton and his wife, Helen, the Walton Family Foundation is now run
by second- and third-generation members including Alice, Rob and Lukas Walton. From 2014 through 2018, the
foundation poured nearly $1 billion into K-12 education. It supports charter
schools, helps fund autonomous schools within traditional public school
districts, and backs new schooling and testing models. The Arkansas-based
nonprofit also spent $441 million on environmental initiatives, with a bulk of
it going to ocean and rivers conservation.
6 | Jim & Marilyn Simons
Giving Focus: STEM
research
5-Year Total: $1.65
billion
Net Worth: $21.6
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 7.6%
A former math
professor, Jim Simons and his wife have dedicated
their philanthropic giving to STEM research and education. Their Simons
Foundation helps fund Math for America, a nonprofit building a network of
highly skilled high school math and science teachers. The foundation also funds
life science research through institutions like the New York Genome Center and
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and supports autism causes through its Autism
Research Institute.
7 | Chuck Feeney
Giving Focus: science,
human rights, youth
5-Year Total: $1.6
billion
Net Worth: n/a
The embodiment of
giving while living, Feeney cofounded Duty Free Shoppers in 1960 and
transferred all his company shares into Atlantic Philanthropies in 1984. His
wish, which he has pretty much fulfilled, was to give all of his fortune away
and die broke. In 2012, he told Forbes he was worth an estimated $2
million. His foundation is shutting down in 2020 after doling out over $8
billion since inception. Its final acts include creating the Global Health
Institute, aimed at combating the dementia epidemic, and launching the Atlantic
Fellows for Racial Equity.
8 | Hansjoerg Wyss
Giving Focus: environment,
science
5-Year Total: $1.55
billion
Net Worth: $6.3
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 24.6%
The Swiss medical devices entrepreneur is
working to save the planet. In 2018, he pledged to spend $1 billion over a
decade to accelerate conservation efforts, with the goal of protecting 30% of
the earth's surface by 2030. The Wyoming resident has helped protect 20 million
acres of land in the American West and 5 million acres of land internationally
through his Wyss Foundation, which works with local partners to buy land and
prevent it from being developed.
9 | Pierre Omidyar
Giving Focus: poverty
alleviation, human rights, disaster relief, education
5-Year Total: $1.4
billion
Net Worth: $13.3
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 10.5%
The eBay founder’s Omidyar Group backs new
approaches to challenges across the world from poverty alleviation to disaster
relief. In Africa, India and Latin America, the philanthropic outlet focuses on
access to high-tech education opportunities. It has also backed nonprofits that
provide emergency assistance to refugees from war-torn countries like South
Sudan and Syria.
10 | Gordon & Betty Moore
Giving Focus: science,
environment, education
5-Year Total: $1.4
billion
Net Worth: $11.8
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 11.9%
Through their
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Intel cofounder and his wife have donated
nearly $1.4 billion in the last five years to causes such as environmental
conservation, scientific research, higher education and the San Francisco Bay
Area. The Foundation committed $200 million towards the construction of the
Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawaii and supported the purchase of 159 acres of
conservation land in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
11 | John & Laura Arnold
Giving Focus: education,
criminal justice, health
5-Year Total: $1.2
billion
Net Worth: $3.3
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 36.4%
The former hedge fund manager and his wife
focus on using research and advocacy to push for change in criminal justice,
healthcare and education. Their work includes creating the Public Safety
Assessment, a tool that helps judicial officers assess, using data, whether a
person charged with a crime should be eligible for bail; the tool is now used
statewide in Arizona, Kentucky, New Jersey and Utah. Other initiatives include
research on retirement plans and Civica Rx, a not-for-profit generic drug
manufacturer that aims to produce essential drugs at affordable prices.
12 | Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan
Giving Focus: science,
education, criminal justice
5-Year Total: $1
billion
Net Worth: $81.8
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 1.2%
A week after their
first child was born, the Facebook CEO and his wife, Priscilla,
pledged in December 2015 to give away 99% of their Facebook shares and created
the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to streamline their philanthropy. It focuses on
education, curing disease and creating inclusive communities by focusing on
criminal justice, housing affordability and immigration reform. In 2018, CZI
made a $40 million pledge, to be given out within five years, to the Regional
Housing Flexible Fund, a public-private partnership that strives to create
affordable housing in the Bay Area.
13 | Julian Robertson Jr.
Giving Focus: environment,
education, medical research
5-Year Total: $881
million
Net Worth: $4.4
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 20%
The pioneering founder of hedge fund Tiger
Management started the Robertson Foundation to support causes related to the
environment, education and medical research. The Foundation cofounded the New
York City Charter School Center, and created the Robertson Scholars Leadership
Program to fund undergraduate education at Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill.
Robertson also established other foundations, including the Tiger Foundation,
the Aotearoa Foundation, and in honor of his parents, the Blanche and Julian
Robertson Family Foundation.
14 | Eli & Edythe Broad
Giving Focus: education,
arts, science
5-Year Total: $816
million
Net Worth: $6.8
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 12%
The Los Angeles residents are longtime art
patrons; their Broad Art Foundation, created in 1984 as an art lending library,
has made more than 8,500 loans to over 500 museums and galleries since its
inception. The foundation also showcases its collection at the Broad, a free contemporary
art museum in downtown Los Angeles. The couple supports science and education
through their Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. They also backed the creation of
the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, an interdisciplinary institute that
aims to use genomic research to cure illnesses like cancer, heart disease and
diabetes.
15 | Charles Koch
Giving Focus: education
5-Year Total: $797
million
Net Worth: $42.8
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 1.9%
The Koch Industries magnate has put much of
his philanthropic efforts toward education. His Charles Koch Foundation gives
grants to students and researchers at some 300 colleges, funding research from
criminal justice reform and substance abuse to foreign policy and immigration.
16 | Paul Allen
Giving Focus: conservation,
science
5-Year Total: $720
million
Net Worth: $20.3
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 3.6%
The Microsoft cofounder gave away more than
$2 billion over his lifetime, including $500 million to the Allen Institute for
Brain Science, which has worked to map the human brain. Vulcan, the parent
organization of his vast portfolio, also donates to conservation efforts and
ocean research.
*Paul Allen passed away on Oct 15, 2018. Net worth is
as of that date.
17 | Lynn & Stacy Schusterman
Giving Focus: education,
Jewish causes
5-Year Total: $713
million
Net Worth: $3.4
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 21%
The wife and daughter of late oil
billionaire Charles Schusterman support education, Jewish community causes and
Israel, and issues affecting their home base of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Since its
founding in 1987, the Foundation has given over $1.2 billion and expanded to
include the Schusterman Foundation-Israel as its philanthropic arm in Israel,
and created missions such as ROI Community and the Schusterman Fellowship.
18 | Dustin Moskovitz & Cari Tuna
Giving Focus: health,
science, criminal justice
5-Year Total: $705
million
Net Worth: $13.5
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 5.2%
The Facebook cofounder and his wife, Cari,
started two organizations, Good Ventures and Open Philanthropy, to bring
transparency to their charitable efforts. From 2014 to 2018, they gave $125
million to nonprofits fighting malaria, $63 million to improve farm animal
welfare, $55 million to institutions researching the risks of advanced
artificial intelligence and $50 million toward criminal justice reform.
19 | Ken Griffin
Giving Focus: education,
arts, science
5-Year Total: $620
million
Net Worth: $13.1
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 4.7%
The Chicago hedge fund manager has made some
big splashes with his donations. In 2014, he committed $150 million to
Harvard’s undergraduate college to support its financial aid program; three
years later, he committed $125 million to the University of Chicago’s economics
department for scholarships and research funding.
20 | Michael & Susan Dell
Giving Focus: poverty
alleviation, education
5-Year Total: $614
million
Net Worth: $31.5
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 2%
In 2017, their namesake foundation committed $1
billion to support social entrepreneurs and nonprofits. The foundation has also
focused on improving urban education and adolescent health, and increasing
access to college education.
21 | Bernard & Billi Marcus
Giving Focus: health,
science, veterans
5-Year Total: $588
million
Net Worth: $6.4
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 9.2%
Home Depot cofounder Marcus and his wife,
Billi, have donated to multiple causes across their home state, Georgia,
including the $290 million Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta and Marcus Autism
Center, one of the largest clinical centers for pediatric autism in the U.S. In
May 2019, Marcus threw a party for his 90th birthday and raised $117 million
for his favorite nonprofits.
22 | Ray & Barbara Dalio
Giving Focus: education,
environment, health
5-Year Total: $576
million
Net Worth: $18.7
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 3.1%
The hedge fund manager and his wife support a
diverse collection of initiatives through their Dalio Philanthropies, including
ocean exploration, mental health and wellness, public school education, social
entrepreneurship and the arts.
23 | W. Barron Hilton
Giving Focus: Catholic
Sisters, disaster relief, foster youth
5-Year Total: $545
million
Net Worth: n/a
The former Hilton Hotels CEO, whose father
founded the eponymous chain, committed 97% of his estate to the family
foundation in 2007. The foundation makes more than $100 million in grants
annually, supporting programs for the homeless, foster youth, children with HIV
and AIDS, youth working in hospitality and more.
*W. Barron Hilton
passed away on September 19, 2019.
24 | Phil Knight
Giving Focus: education
5-Year Total: $533
million
Net Worth: $41
billion
Giving As % Of
Current Net Worth: 1.3%
Cofounder of
sportswear giant Nike, Knight has committed more than $290
million to the University of Oregon, where he ran track as an undergraduate,
including $100 million to help finance construction of the school's new
basketball venue, Matthew Knight Arena, named after his late son. Knight has
also pledged over $500 million to Stanford’s Graduate School of Business to
establish a global scholarship program.
25 | DeVos Family
Giving Focus: education,
arts, health
5-Year Total: $529
million
Net Worth: n/a
Through the five
foundations started by Amway cofounder Richard DeVos Sr. (d.
2018) and his four children, the DeVos clan are major donors to the arts,
healthcare, faith-based organizations and, yes, education (Betsy DeVos, who is married to Richard Jr., is
the U.S. education secretary). They’ve given millions to charter schools and
voucher programs and more than $50 million to Grand Valley State University
near their hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the family name adorns
everything from the local symphony’s DeVos Performance Hall to the Helen DeVos
Children’s Hospital.
*Net worths are as
of market close, January 15, 2020.
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