The 22nd annual Philanthropy 50, the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s list of America’s biggest donors, is based on gifts and pledges of cash, stock, land, and real estate to nonprofit organizations in 2021.
The Chronicle talked to dozens of nonprofits, philanthropists, and their representatives to find out more about large donations that were made public last year, as well as the philanthropy of big donors who gave quietly. However, not all philanthropists publicly disclose details about their giving, and they are not legally required to do so.
Gifts made to donors’ family foundations and donor-advised funds were counted; however, disbursements from those grant-making vehicles were not included in our rankings to avoid double-counting.
Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates gave $15 billion to their foundation last year to take the top spot in the Chronicle’s 22nd annual ranking of America’s biggest donors. Read more:
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.
Missing Donors
MacKenzie Scott is among the notable absences on the Philanthropy 50 list. While it is possible that Scott made gifts that could have earned her a spot on the Philanthropy 50, she and her representatives declined to provide information to the Chronicle about how much money Scott put into her giving vehicles in 2021.
Scott gave at least $2.8 billion to charities last year, likely through three donor-advised funds housed at the Chicago Community Trust, Fidelity Charitable, and the National Philanthropic Trust, which the online magazine Puck has reported belong to her.
Multiyear Gifts
Some of America’s biggest donors don’t appear on the current Philanthropy 50 even if they made a big gift to a nonprofit last year. That’s because the Chronicle’s rankings count multiyear pledges only once, as a lump sum in the year the commitment was made.
For example, Warren Buffett is 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 $3.2 billion in 2021.
The donation was an annual installment on his 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.
Here’s how much Buffett gave to charity last year:
- Nearly 11.6 million shares of class “B” Berkshire stock, valued at nearly $3.2 billion, to the Gates Foundation, the latest installment of his 2006 pledge.
- Almost 1.2 million shares valued at more than $267.6 million to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation — named for his first wife, who died in 2004. To date, he has contributed more than $3 billion of the approximately $3.6 billion he has pledged to the fund.
- More than 810,000 shares (valued at more than $187.3 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 promotes alternative ways of living, such as local agriculture, food coops, and worker-owned businesses; 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 each of Berkshire Hathaway stock to the foundations of his three children and doubled the original pledge in 2012. To date, he has given the three foundations almost $1.9 billion each.
