2017 Was a Banner Year, With 3 Gifts of $1 Billion or More

Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

It was a banner year for big gifts in 2017, with three donations of $1 billion or more, helping to make it the strongest year for giving in the past decade, according to Chronicle data.

Those three contributions came from some of the wealthiest technology entrepreneurs in the country and benefited their foundations.

The Chronicle’s annual top-10 list of the largest gifts announced by individuals or their foundations was unusually strong throughout, with the smallest of the bunch coming in at $165 million.

The 10 biggest gifts in 2017 totaled $10.2 billion, more than double the total from 2016, when the 10 largest donations totaled $4.3 billion.

Four foundations, four universities, and one conservation group received the biggest contributions of 2017.

A multibillion donation that the financier George Soros reportedly gave to his Open Society Foundations was not included on the list of the top-10 gifts because an Open Society official told The Chronicle in October that the money was from a series of donations Mr. Soros gave his foundations over multiple recent years.

Foundations Win Big

The largest gift announced in 2017 came from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda. The couple gave Microsoft stock valued at about $4.6 billion to their $40 billion foundation, which backs global development, heath, and policy, as well as efforts to improve the U.S. education system.

Anita Bugge/WireImage/Getty Images

The Gateses’ gift was followed by a nearly $1.9 billion contribution Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, gave to their Chan Zuckerberg Foundation, a nonprofit arm of their Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a limited-liability company. The couples philanthropy focuses on education, housing, science, and improving the criminal-justice system.

Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, rounded out the list with a $1 billion donation to their foundation, nearly doubling the size of the grant maker, which supports programs in economic mobility, health, and urban education.

Henry Hillman, a Pittsburgh billionaire who died in April, left about $800 million to his Hillman Family Foundations. At least 90 percent of Mr. Hillman’s bequest will benefit nonprofits in the Pittsburgh area.

University medical centers and medical programs were the beneficiaries of most of the other biggest contributions announced in 2017.

Florence Irving, the widow of Sysco Corporation co-founder Herbert Irving, gave $600 million to two medical centers that are partners: Columbia University Herbert and Florence Irving Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

That gift was followed by $500 million from the late Helen Diller’s foundation to the University of California at San Francisco. About $200 million of the Diller grant will go toward programs for students in the dentistry, medicine, nursing, and pharmacy schools; and $100 million will support biomedical research.

A gift of $250 million from Roy and Diana Vagelos endowed scholarships and research at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a $200 million donation from Henry and Susan Samueli to the University of California at Irvine established a new health-sciences college focused on a type of medical care known as integrative health, which centers on treating patients using several types of therapeutic, preventive, and other care.

The Chronicle’s annual rankings are based on the 10 biggest publicly announced gifts. The tally does not include donations of artwork or gifts from anonymous donors.

In February, The Chronicle will unveil its annual ranking of the 50 most generous donors, a list based on individuals’ total contributions in 2017, not single gifts.

Biggest Gifts Announced by Individuals or Their Foundations in 2017