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From Buffett to Bloomberg: The 25 Philanthropists In America Making The Biggest Donations

Additional reporting by Angel Au-Yeung, Deniz Cam, Lauren Debter, Kerry A. Dolan, Noah Kirsch, Chase Peterson-Withorn, Kristin Stoller and Tracy Wang.

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.

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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.

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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.  

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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*Net worths are as of market close, January 15, 2020.

PHOTOS:  Dave Pedley, Paul Best, Will Ragozzino, Craig Barritt, /Patrick McMullan /Getty Images, Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP,  The John & Laura Arnold Foundation

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