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WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 (AP) — The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual list lists the top 10 charitable giving announced by individuals or their foundations in 2022, totaling nearly $9.3 billion.
The donations went to large, well-known institutions, including three private foundations and three universities, to support environmental sustainability, children’s mental health and stem cell research. Other donations support cancer research and treatment, housing construction, youth programs and reproductive health.
Two of the donations exceeded $1 billion, and six of the eight donors (one donor made three) were billionaires. The six donors have a combined net worth of just over $325 billion.
Topping the list is Bill Gates, who donated $5 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the funders’ work in global health, development, policy and advocacy, and U.S. education.
Gates, whose net worth is estimated at $104 billion, drew attention in July when he announced a $20 billion donation to the foundation he runs with his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates.
However, foundation officials confirmed in December that three-quarters of the $20 billion was used to pay back the $15 billion he and French Gates pledged in July 2021. The remaining $5 billion is a new injection into the Foundation.
Ann and John Doerr came in second with $1.1 billion in donations through their Benificus Foundation to Stanford University to launch the Stanford Doerr Institute for Sustainability to address the world’s most pressing climate and Sustainability challenge. The new faculty will focus on eight academic areas: climate change, earth and planetary sciences, energy technologies, sustainable cities, natural environment, food and water security, human society and behaviour, and human health and the environment.
The new school will house multiple academic departments and interdisciplinary institutes. It will also be home to a “Sustainability Accelerator,” which, among other efforts, will provide grants to researchers and others to develop new technologies in environmental sustainability and related fields, advance new policies, and support Partnerships.
John Doerr is a venture capitalist who rose to fame and made most of his fortune as an early backer of Silicon Valley tech giants such as Sun Microsystems, Amazon and Google. Today, he serves as chairman of investment firm Kleiner Perkins and has a net worth of just over $9 billion.
In third place are Jackie Bezos and Mike Bezos, the mother and stepfather of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The couple donated $710.5 million to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center through their Bezos Family Foundation to build 36 research labs and an additional large research facility.
The grant will also support clinical trials and immunotherapy research at the Cancer Center over the next 10 years.
Until recently, the couple have been fairly low-key philanthropists. However, Jackie Bezos has been closely involved with several nonprofit projects over the years. She created the Bezos Scholars Program, Aspen Challenge, and Students Rebuild at the Aspen Institute, which are educational programs for different age groups. Mike Bezos spent 32 years as an engineer and manager at oil and gas giant Exxon Mobil before retiring and turning his attention to the couple’s endowment.
Gifts from the Doerrs and Bezoses were followed by gifts from Warren Buffett. The esteemed 92-year-old investor has donated nearly $474.3 million worth of stock to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, the patronage Warren Buffett established in 1964 to manage the family’s charitable giving, It was later named after his first wife, who died in 2004.
The foundation supports women’s reproductive health and provides college scholarships to students in Nebraska, where the foundation is based.
A representative for Buffett confirmed that the gift was a special one-time donation Buffett decided to make in late November, rather than an annual contribution he made to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and several other donors. is a promise of billions of dollars in payments he announced in 2006.
The late Ruth DeYoung Kohler II was fifth. The Kohler heiress, who died in 2020 at age 79, left a $440 million bequest to establish the Ruth Foundation for the Arts, a Milwaukee grantmaking organization dedicated to supporting visual and performing arts across the country art groups. It plans to award about $20 million a year.
Kohler was an avid arts supporter and ran the John Michael Kohler Center for the Arts in Sheboygan, Wisconsin from 1972 to 2016.
Khloe II is followed by novelist and Amazon co-founder Mackenzie Scott, who donated $436 million to Habitat for Humanity International. Gifts are unrestricted, like most of Scott’s donations.
When UN-Habitat officials announced the donation in March, they said they planned to use the money to address the global housing crisis and advocate for system-wide changes to increase equitable access to low-cost housing for everyone.
Two of Scott’s other donations — $281 million to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and $275 million to Planned Parenthood — also appear on the list.
The Chronicle’s annual ranking is based on the top 10 publicly announced gifts. Counts do not include contributions of artwork or gifts from anonymous donors.
In February, The Chronicle will publish its annual ranking of the 50 largest donors, based on total individual giving in 2022 rather than individual giving. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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