How Much U.S. Giving Pledge Members Donate to Their Foundations

How Giving Pledge members fulfill their promise to give away at least half of their wealth is often a very private matter. Aside from a few announced big gifts, their philanthropy can be a mystery.

Donations to private foundations, however, are recorded in grant-maker tax filings, offering at least a glimpse of the charitable giving of pledge members, and sometimes more. The Chronicle has compiled snapshots of giving by 74 of the 155 U.S. Giving Pledge members to their affiliated private foundations, often entities founded with their families. The data covers 2010 through 2017 and includes giving and grant-making data in those years even for those who signed after the pledge’s 2010 start because many were already conducting significant philanthropy before joining.

For other U.S. pledge members, the Chronicle was either unable to identify foundations affiliated with them or could not determine the donors making contributions.

The data is not a complete accounting of any individual’s philanthropy. Many pledge signatories give in a variety of ways, including through donor-advised funds, limited-liability corporations, family offices, and other entities for which records are not typically available publicly. Also, some philanthropists give directly to charities that aren’t foundations, and those gifts are not necessarily publicly available.

Methodology

The contributions and foundations data has been compiled from analysis of annual foundation filings with the Internal Revenue Service from 2010 (the year the Giving Pledge launched) through 2017 or the latest year available. Contributions to a foundation were credited to a Giving Pledge member if the donation was made individually, through a trust in the person’s name, or through a business enterprise owned by the member. Other contributions to the foundation were excluded.

For this work, the data-nonprofit Candid identified the foundations affiliated with Giving Pledge members as part of its “Eye on the Giving Pledge” project. It also provided some of the data for our giving snapshots, although for some donors, we concluded that the information could not be analyzed.

Note: Giving Pledge members may give to foundations not identified by Candid. Also, the Chronicle did not attempt to examine the giving of pledge members for whom Candid did not identify affiliated foundations.

Estimated net worth figures are from the Forbes ranking of billionaires from March 2019. The wealth of Giving Pledge members not appearing in that ranking is noted as less than $1 billion.