Buffett tops list of 2023 charity donors
THE CHRONICLE OF PHILANTHROPY
The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual list of the biggest charitable donations from individuals or their foundations totaled more than $3.5 billion in 2023. Four universities received big gifts in 2023, along with four scientific research institutes and a health care system. The other gifts went to a family foundation and a racial justice group.
The list has 11 gifts because of ties. Eight of the donors are multibillionaires, and their combined net worth is $305.1 billion.
Topping the list is a gift from the investment guru Warren Buffett, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes at roughly $119 billion. He gave 1.5 million shares of Berkshire Hathaway Class “B” stock valued at $541.5 million to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for his first wife, who died in 2004.
Buffett created the grant maker in 1964 to manage the family’s charitable giving. The foundation primarily backs women’s reproductive health. It also provides college scholarships for students in Nebraska, where the family is from.
A donation from the mathematician and hedge-fund founder James Simons and his wife, Marilyn is second on the list. The couple gave $500 million 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 Simons, who have an estimated net worth of $30.7 billion, have deep ties to the university. James Simons was chairman of its mathematics department from 1968 to 1978, and Marilyn Simons earned two degrees there: a bachelor’s degree in 1974 and a Ph.D. in economics in 1984.
Tying for third on the list is a contribution from Ross Brown, the founder of Cryogenic Industries, an industrial equipment manufacturer. In November, Brown gave the biggest gift to science in 2023 when he pledged $400 million to the California Institute of Technology.
The center 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, $2 million awards to midcareer, tenured faculty working on chemistry and physics research.
Nike cofounder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, made a $400 million pledge to the 1803 Fund. The commitment from the Knights, whose net worth is pegged at $43 billion, will establish Rebuild Albina, an effort to revive the economic and cultural prosperity of Albina, a historic area of Portland, Ore., that was once a thriving Black neighborhood but fell into neglect in the 1970s.
Black families in Albina were displaced by a ruinous mix of predatory lending, discriminatory government practices, and huge, long-term construction projects that shuttered businesses and destroyed the neighborhood. It was a pattern that played out in many US cities during that era. Rebuild Albina officials plan to renovate the area, pay for education programs and educationrelated services for children and their families, and support a range of projects meant to deepen the area’s cultural roots. The Knights are giving the money both personally and through their Knight Foundation.