SEATTLE (AP) — 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 nonprofit in December.
The
Chronicle of Philanthropy reported Monday that Zuckerberg’s donation was
the largest charitable gift on the public record in 2013 and put the
young couple at the top of the magazine’s annual list of 50 most
generous Americans in 2013.
The top 50 contributors made donations last year totaling $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 totaled about the same
amount as the two previous years combined.
"It’s a sure sign that
the economy is getting better and people are getting a lot less
cautious," said Stacy Palmer, Chronicle editor.
Some of the
nation’s biggest givers do not appear on the 2013 list, not because they
stopped being generous, but because their donations in 2013 were
counted as pledges in previous years.
For example, Microsoft
co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, gave their foundation
slightly more than $181.3 million last year, but they were paying off a
pledge of about $3.3 billion they made in 2004. CNN-founder Ted Turner
and Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett also made large gifts
toward previous pledges.
It took gifts totaling at least $37.5
million to make the list this year. Forty-two of the top 50 made gifts
of $50 million or more.
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.
Ten of
the 50 made the list because of bequests after their deaths, including
the second biggest giver in 2013, George Mitchell, a Galveston, Texas,
man who made his fortune in energy and real estate.
At No. 3 were
Nike chairman Philip Knight and his wife, Penelope, of Portland, Ore.,
who made a $500 million challenge grant to Oregon Health & Science
University Foundation for cancer research. The Knight pledge requires
the university match it within the next two years.
No. 4 was
philanthropist and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who made
gifts totaling $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.
Although most people on the list were
prominent wealthy people who have given generously in the past, Palmer
said a few were surprises, including Jack MacDonald, a Seattle lawyer,
who gave $139 million to three nonprofits upon his death.
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Contact Donna Blankinship at https://twitter.com/dgblankinship
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Online:
Chronicle of Philanthropy: http://philanthropy.com/50
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