Incredible it may sound but Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, were the most generous American philanthropists in 2013, with a donation of 18 million shares of Facebook stock, valued at more than $970 million, to a Silicon Valley non-profit in December.
The top 50 contributors made donations last year totalling $7.7 billion, plus pledges of $2.9 billion.
The Chronicle’s editor says the most significant fact from the list was the amount of money coming from living donors, which totalled about the same amount as the two previous years combined.
Thirty made big gifts to colleges and universities, but Palmer noted most college gifts went to science and research this year, not to buildings, as in previous years.
No. 3 were Nike chairman Philip Knight and his wife, Penelope, of Portland, Oregon, who made a $500 million challenge grant to Oregon Health & Science University Foundation for cancer research.
No. 4 was philanthropist and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who made gifts totalling $452 million in 2013 to arts, education, environment, public health and other causes.
Nineteen people or couples on the list have signed the Giving Pledge, started by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in 2010. More than 120 of the world’s wealthiest individuals and families have pledged to give at least half their wealth to charity since the movement began.
Worldwide e-Human Society salutes these great donors for their gestures towards the human kind. You are truly e-Humans.
Worldwide e-Human Society 