The Washington, D.C.-based Chronicle of Philanthropy has announced its annual list of the biggest publicly announced charitable donations from individuals or their foundations, which totaled more than US$3.5 billion in 2023.
Among the biggest recipients were a handful of universities and scientific research institutes, in addition to a health-care system, a family foundation, and a racial-justice group.
“Our analysis finds that the biggest single gifts in 2023 range from US$200 million to US$541.5 million each. Very large donations like these are less likely to be impacted by short-term, economic ups and downs because a number of the donors are multibillionaires,” says Maria Di Mento, senior reporter at the Chronicle.
Eight of the donors are multibillionaires, with a combined net worth of US$305.1 billion.
Topping the list was a gift from
Warren Buffett,
whose net worth is estimated by Forbes at around US$119 billion. The co-founder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway gave 1.5 million shares of his company’s Class “B” stock—valued at US$541.5 million—to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, which is named for his first wife, who died in 2004.
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The foundation, which was formed in 1964 in Omaha, Neb., remains a family affair with two of Buffett’s three children currently serving on its board. It primarily backs women’s reproductive health and also provides college scholarships for students in Buffett’s home state of Nebraska.
Buffett has famously made it a mission to give away nearly all of the fortune he has built at Berkshire Hathaway, which he has run since 1965. The 93-year-old has donated more than US$50 billion since 2006.
Second on the list was a US$500 million donation from the Renaissance Technologies hedge-fund founder James Simons and his wife, Marilyn. The couple gave the gift in June through their Simons Foundation to the State University of New York at Stony Brook to support the university’s endowment and to boost scholarships, professorships, research, and clinical care.
The couple, whose estimated combined net worth is around US$30.7 billion, have extensive ties to the university—James, 85, was chairman of the mathematics department from 1968 to 1978, and Marilyn, 72, earned two degrees there. Since 1983, when the Simonses made their first gift of US$750, they have committed more than US$1.2 billion to the university.
“Jim and I want to ensure that Stony Brook continues to serve its students with the highest level of educational excellence and with world-class resources,” said Marilyn Simons in a statement announcing the donation.
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Tying for third on the list was the year’s biggest gift to science, a US$400 million donation from Ross Brown—founder of the industrial equipment manufacturer Cryogenic Industries—to his alma mater, the California Institute of Technology. The gift, which the 88-year-old made in November, will be used to launch the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences.
The institute will support scientific research at other universities and will house the Ross Brown Investigators Award Program, a fellowship program Brown started in 2020 that until this year was operated out of his foundation. The program provides five-year, US$2 million awards to mid-career, tenured faculty working on chemistry and physics research.
Nike co-founder
Phil Knight,
85, and his wife, Penny, made a US$400 million pledge to the 1803 Fund, a public benefit nonprofit dedicated to rebuilding and strengthening the historically Black community in Portland, Ore. The donation will establish Rebuild Albina, an effort to revive the economic and cultural prosperity of what was once a thriving Black neighborhood that fell into neglect in the 1970s from a mix of predatory lending, discriminatory government practices, and long-term construction projects.
The financial commitment from the Knights, whose combined estimated net worth is roughly US$43 billion, will come from both their personal funds as well as through their Knight Foundation.
“The donation from Phil and Penny Knight in support of efforts to revive once a thriving Black neighborhood in the Portland area is unique in that we don’t often see such large sums going to such important neighborhood revitalization and racial justice efforts, and the one from Ross Brown to Caltech is interesting because it’s supporting research at other universities rather than going to support Caltech programs,” Di Mento says.
Next on the list is
Dan Gilbert
—founder of Rocket Mortgage and chairman of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers—and his wife, Jennifer. The couple gifted US$375 million through their Gilbert Family Foundation to Henry Ford Health to build two medical centers,
Also making the list:
- Financier Kenneth Griffin gave US$300 million through his charitable fund to back financial aid and a range of other programs within Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
- Timothy Springer, founder of the pharmaceuticals company LeukoSite, and Chafen Lu, a former assistant professor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, combined to donate US$210 million to the Institute for Protein Innovation, a nonprofit institute supporting exploratory protein research.
- Through his will, Franklin Antonio—a scientist and co-founder of chipmaker Qualcomm who died in 2022—bequeathed a pair of US$200 million gifts in 2023. One went to the SETI Institute for research into the origins of life, the other went to the Summer Science Program, which provides advanced science-immersion experiences for high-school seniors.
- Kenneth Langone, co-founder of Home Depot, and his wife, Elaine, donated US$200 million to New York University’s Grossman Long Island School of Medicine for scholarships.
- Leonard and Ronald Lauder, heirs to the Estee Lauder cosmetics company fortune, and their four children combined to give US$200 million to the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation for research and operations.
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