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America’s ultrawealthy stepped up their donations to charity in 2020, as unprecedented challenges spurred them to give in new ways and inspired newcomers to join the ranks of top philanthropists.
The 50 biggest donors of 2020 handed out $24.7 billion to nonprofits, up from $15.8 billion in 2019, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Philanthropy 50 ranking released Tuesday.
The list features business and tech leaders who have long been known for their giving — like Mike Bloomberg and Bill and Melinda Gates — as well as new faces such as MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of Amazon AMZN, -0.37% CEO Jeff Bezos; Twitter TWTR, +3.45% CEO Jack Dorsey; NBA great Michael Jordan; and Airbnb ABNB, -2.69% co-founder Joseph Gebbia Jr.
These billionaire donors — many of whom saw their personal wealth skyrocket as everyday Americans’ finances came under threat — poured dollars into addressing the coronavirus pandemic, its economic impact and the racial-justice reckoning, among other causes.
Who’s on the list of America’s top donors
The people who gave the most money to charity in 2020, according to the Chronicle’s Philanthropy 50, were:
No. 1: Jeff Bezos
The Amazon founder, who just announced he’ll be stepping down to focus on his philanthropy and other projects, put $10 billion toward the Bezos Earth Fund, a climate-change initiative. The fund handed out $791 million in grants.
No. 2: MacKenzie Scott
The novelist has been on a giving spree since her divorce from Bezos, announcing in July that she had handed out some $1.7 billion in the year following the split. In December, she revealed that she had distributed more than $4 billion over four months to 384 groups across the U.S., including local YMCAs and several Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
No. 3: Mike Bloomberg
The founder of the financial technology and media company Bloomberg LP, former New York mayor and onetime presidential hopeful has appeared on the Philanthropy 50 list 16 times. He supported a variety of causes in 2020, including public health, basic human services and $100 million to provide scholarships to four historically Black medical schools.
No. 4: Phil and Penelope Knight
The co-founder of Nike NKE, -0.85% and his wife donated $465 million to his alma mater, the University of Oregon, in support of scientific research and other areas of study. They also gave $900.7 million to their private foundation, some of which was distributed to community groups in Oregon providing pandemic relief.
No. 5: Jack Dorsey
The CEO of both Twitter and Square SQ, +1.23% announced in April that he was putting $1 billion in Square shares into a charitable LLC that then distributed nearly $330.5 million in grants. The money went to groups “working to help people whose lives have been upended by the pandemic and to groups trying to correct the underlying systems that have made the multiple crises of 2020 so much harder for people of color and low-income people,” according to the Chronicle.
What causes did top philanthropists support in 2020?
Ultrahigh-net-worth individuals tend to favor making gifts to universities, colleges, and medical and scientific research. That trend continued in 2020, but big donors also focused on meeting basic needs by donating large sums to organizations fighting hunger, homelessness and debt relief, said the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Maria Di Mento, who compiled the list.
“That was something we’ve never seen before,” Di Mento said. “I’ve been doing this list for 16 years and I’ve never seen organizations of that type get these kinds of gifts.”
Examples include Bezos’s $100 million donation to the COVID-19 response fund at Feeding America, a national network of food banks. Gebbia made the Philanthropy 50 list for the first time with $27 million targeting homelessness in San Francisco. Charles Schwab, founder of the retail brokerage firm SCHW, +2.79% bearing his name, and his wife, Helen, also debuted on the list with a $65 million donation to address homelessness in San Francisco.
“That’s a huge amount,” Di Mento said of Schwab’s donation. “These organizations that work on these problems don’t get that kind of money. I was really pleased to see that happening.”
Racial-justice causes also attracted major donations. Real-estate mogul and Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross put $13 million toward addressing racial inequality with his own nonprofit, and Jordan pledged $50 million to racial-justice groups such as the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Who’s not on the list
The top 50 donors were “a small share of the billionaire class,” the Chronicle noted. “Only 23 of the people on the Forbes 400 gave enough to qualify for the list.”
Missing from the Philanthropy 50 was Tesla TSLA, -2.18% founder Elon Musk, who dethroned Bezos as the richest person in the world in early 2021. Musk has been criticized for devoting a relatively small amount of his fortune to the public good. (Tesla did not immediately respond to a MarketWatch request for comment on this criticism.)
Musk in January asked for suggestions on “ways to donate money that really make a difference” — noting, as other billionaires have before him, that giving out money is “harder than it seems.” He recently announced a $100 million pledge to fund a prize for the best carbon-capture technology.
One big caveat to any list of philanthropists: Donors sometimes give anonymously, and some use giving vehicles such as LLCs that aren’t required to disclose their spending, so tracking donations can sometimes be impossible.
