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In 2017, America's wealthiest residents donated $14.7 billion to nonprofit organizations.
About 60% of the total was donated by people who made their fortunes in tech, suggesting America's philanthropic center is shifting away from Wall Street and towards Silicon Valley, according to The Chronicle.
America's wealthiest people donated $14.7 billion in 2017 to causes, alma maters, foundations, and charities - more than doubling the amount given away in 2016, reported Forbes.
For 18 years, The Chronicle of Philanthropy has published an annual round up of the top-50 philanthropists in America by calculating their yearly donations. In 2017, the individuals and couples on the list donated a median of $97 million, doubling the giving amount from the first list published in 2000. The total donation amount of the 2017 list is the highest amount since the 2008 recession, according to Forbes.
The 2017 list features 11 individuals or couples from the technology industry accounting for $8.7 billion in donations, or about 60% of the total, suggesting America's philanthropic center is shifting away from Wall Street and towards Silicon Valley, according to The Chronicle.
Notably missing from the list is billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who made a multibillion-dollar donation in Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2017. But because the "annual installment" was part of Buffett's initial 2006 pledge to donate more than $36 billion in Berkshire Hathaway shares to the Gates' organization, the Chronicle did not count it as a 2017 donation.
Below are the top 25 philanthropists who donated more than $97 million each in 2017. Note that four people passed away after the ranking was first published in February - Porter Byrum, David Rockefeller, Florence Irving, and Henry Hillman.
Biggest causes: Art for Justice Fund, criminal justice reform, literacy organizations including Actors' Gang, the National Book Foundation, PEN America and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
Biggest causes: Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Zoological Society of San Diego, National University in La Jolla, California, and Sanford Health Foundation
Biggest causes: David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Museum of Modern Art, Licoln Center, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, and funds areas of health, education, arts and culture, LGBT and the fight against AIDS
Biggest causes: University of Illinois at Urban-Champaign, Lucile Packard Foundation, Northwestern University, Gies Foundation, Huntington Disease Society, Sarcoidosis Foundation, and Misericordia Women's League
Biggest causes: University of California at Irvine College of Health Services, Samueli Foundation and Broadcom Foundation funding areas include: health, education, youth services, social services, Jewish community, and Southern California community
Biggest causes: Holdsworth Center, The Charles Butt Foundation primarily funds grants towards education, cultural, and health institution with past grants for St. Mark's Episcopal Church, The Menil Collection, and Meadows mental Helath Policy Institute
Biggest causes: Columbia University Herbert and Florence Irving Medical Center, New York-Presbyterian Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Biggest causes: Michael and Susan Dell Foundation — children and family poverty in Central Texas, India, and South Africa; social enterprises and nonprofits for urban education and family economic stability
