The total big donors gave was $7.8 billion, a sharp drop from the 14.7 billion donated in 2017. The causes philanthropists supported are evolving, with more wealthy Americans looking for ways to shape the world’s uncertain future.
The 19th annual Philanthropy 50, the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s list of America’s most generous donors, is based primarily on gifts and pledges of cash and stock to nonprofit organizations.
The Chronicle talked to dozens of nonprofits, philanthropists, and their representatives to find out more about large donations that were made public in 2018, as well as the philanthropy of big donors who gave quietly last year.
We sought out all information about large charitable donations made by individuals in 2018, but not all philanthropists publicly disclose details about their giving, and they are not legally required to do so.
Gifts donors made to the family foundations were counted; however, disbursements from those foundations were not included in our rankings to avoid double-counting.
The Chronicle counts only gifts that donors make to organizations with charity or foundation status under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Some of America’s biggest donors don’t appear on the current Philanthropy 50 even though they may have given a big gift to a nonprofit last year. That’s because the Chronicle’s rankings count multiyear pledges only once, as a single lump sum in the year the commitment was made.
For example, Nike co-founder Phil Knight funneled stock valued at nearly $1.7 billion to an unnamed charity that appears to be his foundation throughout the latter part of 2018. He was not included in the Philanthropy 50, however, because Knight would not confirm whether those gifts went to his foundation to pay off more than $1.5 billion in pledges he has announced over the last decade, or whether the money was for a new charitable purpose.
Warren Buffett is also absent from this year’s list even though he gave the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation stock in his Berkshire Hathaway investment firm valued at nearly $2.6 billion.
The donation was an annual installment on Buffett’s 2006 pledge of more than $36 billion in Berkshire shares to the foundation. That same year he also made multibillion pledges to the foundations of his late first wife and his three children.
In compiling the list, the Chronicle counts only the full amount of a pledge in the year it is made, even if it will take years to pay off.
Here’s how much Buffett gave to charity last year:
- 13,509,002 shares of class “B” Berkshire stock valued at nearly $2.6 billion to the Gates Foundation — the latest installment of his 2006 pledge.
- 1,350,900 shares valued at $259.4 million to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation — named for Mr. Buffett’s first wife, who died in 2004. To date, he has contributed well over half of approximately $3.6 billion he has pledged to the fund.
- 945,626 shares (nearly $181.6 million) apiece to the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which funds agriculture, clean-water, and anti-poverty programs; the NoVo Foundation, co-founded by Peter Buffett and his wife, Jennifer, which focuses on the well-being of girls and women globally and supports economic and education programs; and daughter Susan Buffett’s Sherwood Foundation, which backs social-justice work and early-childhood education. Warren Buffett originally promised about 17,500,000 shares of Berkshire Hathaway to the three foundations and doubled the original pledge in 2012. To date, he has given his children’s foundations more than $1.3 billion each.
