In 2023, No American Gave More to Charity Than This Man

Former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg contributed $3 billion to support the arts, education, environment, public health, and programs aimed at improving city governments around the world in 2023, putting him atop the Chronicle of Philanthropy's exclusive list of the 50 Americans who donated the largest sums to nonprofits last year.

Next on the list is Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, who gave $1.24 billion, including support for the University of Oregon and an ambitious poverty-fighting effort in Portland, Oregon. Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, contributed nearly $976 million to their charitable funds, putting them in the third slot. Together, the 50 donors on the list contributed a total of $11.9 billion to charity in 2023. The median amount they gave was $100 million.

Interesting details about who else made the list:

• For the first time, Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates appear separately on the list—she at No. 9 and he at No. 16.
• All three co-founders of Home Depot are on the list—Bernie Marcus at No. 10, Ken Langone at No. 12, and Arthur Blank at No. 21.
• Only 23 of the richest Americans on the Forbes 400 list donated enough to appear on the Philanthropy rankings.
• Four of the donors on the Philanthropy 50 are under 40. The youngest donor is 34-year-old Jeff Sobrato, a real-estate investor.
• Fifteen top donors live in California, seven in New York, five in Florida, four in Texas, and three each in Virginia and Washington. Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia have no donors on the list.
• Donors with ties to the financial industry were most frequently on the list (10 donors with $2.2 billion in contributions); followed by those who earned fortunes in technology (nine donors with $2.6 billion in donations), and real estate (six donors with $397 million in contributions).

Among those who gave big—but are less well known:

• Franklin Antonio, an early employee of chipmaker Qualcomm, is No. 6. He bequeathed $400 million to the Summer Science Program and to the SETI Institute, which seeks to detect evidence of life elsewhere in the universe.
• Ohio investor Hugh Hoffman, at No. 11, left $231.7 million to the ALS Association, University of Cincinnati Foundation, Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, Cincinnati Nature Center, Yale University, and other groups.
• Boston's Tim Springer and Chafen Lu, academics and researchers, were early investors in Moderna. At No. 13 on the list, they contributed $210 million to the Institute for Protein Innovation, which shares its data with scientists for free.
• At No. 23, San Diego's Jay Kahn worked in the clothing industry for many years and was an early investor in Price Club and Apple. He bequeathed $106 million to the San Diego Foundation.

(More philanthropy stories.)