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Big Gifts Top $4 Billion So Far This Year

By  Maria Di Mento
June 15, 2015
MidYear Gifts

Wealthy donors gave over $700 million more to nonprofits in the first five months of 2015 than they did in the same period last year, according to a Chronicle tally.

From January through the first week of June 2015, affluent donors gave more than $4 billion to nonprofit groups, a 21-percent increase over the same period in 2014. That’s good news for nonprofits seeking gifts from rich supporters.

The tally is based on publicized donations of $1 million or more from individuals and their private foundations.

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Wealthy donors gave over $700 million more to nonprofits in the first five months of 2015 than they did in the same period last year, according to a Chronicle tally.

From January through the first week of June 2015, affluent donors gave more than $4 billion to nonprofit groups, a 21-percent increase over the same period in 2014. That’s good news for nonprofits seeking gifts from rich supporters.

The tally is based on publicized donations of $1 million or more from individuals and their private foundations.

The largest increases came from the wealthiest donors: Money given by those who contributed $50 million or more grew by almost a third, accounting for $2 billion so far this year, compared to $1.5 billion by this time in 2014. And five more gifts of that size have been made than during the comparable period last year.

The amount given by those donating $100 million or more grew the most of any category — 41 percent — primarily because of the $400-million contribution from the financier John Paulson to Harvard earlier this month

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The Chronicle did not include donations of artwork in its tally.

To learn about big donations throughout the year, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated throughout the week.

10 Largest Gifts of 2015 So Far

Donor Gift Amount Recipient
John Paulson $400 million Harvard U.
Stephen Schwarzman $150 million Yale U.
David Koch $150 million Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
David Geffen Foundation $100 million Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Roberta Buffett Elliott $100 million Northwestern U.
Rady Family Foundation (Ernest and Evelyn Rady) $100 million U. of California at San Diego, Rady School of Management
Marion Anderson $100 million U. of California at Los Angeles, Anderson School of Management
Henry and Marie-Josee Kravis $100 million Rockefeller U.
Querrey Simpson Charitable Foundation (Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey) $92 million Northwestern U.
Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan through their fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation $75 million San Francisco General Hospital Foundation
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Foundation GivingFundraising from IndividualsMajor-Gift Fundraising
Maria Di Mento
Maria directs the annual Philanthropy 50, a comprehensive report on America’s most generous donors. She writes about wealthy philanthropists, arts organizations, key trends and insights related to high-net-worth donors, and other topics.
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SPONSORED, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY

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