Michael Bloomberg, 83, topped the list of Americans who donated the most money to nonprofits last year, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Philanthropy 50 list for 2024. It was the second year in a row that Bloomberg led the list.
Bloomberg gave $3.7 billion to charitable causes in 2024 in support of the arts, education, public health groups, and city government improvement programs. He made his contributions directly and through his charitable organization Bloomberg Philanthropies.
One sizable donation Bloomberg made was a $1 billion grant to Johns Hopkins University in July 2024 to cover the cost of medical school for students.
“I’ve never understood people who wait until they die to give away their wealth,” Bloomberg told the Chronicle in an email. “Why deny yourself the satisfaction? I’ve been very lucky, and I’m determined to do what I can to open doors for others and to leave a better world for my children and grandchildren.”
Michael Bloomberg. Photographer: Lionel Ng/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Five other individual donors or couples joined Bloomberg in giving away $1 billion or more last year. They were: Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings and his wife Patty Quillin (second on the list), Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell and his wife Susan Dell (third), Warren Buffett (fourth), Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan (fifth), and retired pediatrics professor Ruth Gottesman (sixth).
The bulk of the donations went to funds that supported causes like scientific research and education. Gottesman made a move similar to Bloomberg’s by donating $1 billion to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York in February to make the medical school tuition-free as of August 2024.
The top 50 donors on the list gave a collective $16.2 billion for philanthropic causes in 2024. The median amount they gave was $100 million.
Paychex founder Thomas Golisano was the eighth most generous donor on the list, giving away $500 million in 2024. Most of his donations, or about $400 million, were no-strings-attached contributions to over 100 nonprofits in New York and Florida. One of his areas of focus is organizations that support people with disabilities.
Former investment banker K. Lisa Yang (wife of Broadcom CEO Hock E. Tan) was the 34th donor on the list. She gave away $74.5 million this year, mostly to MIT and Cornell University. In February, Yang gave $35 million to Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine’s Wildlife Center to support wildlife conservation.
Venture capital investor Michele Kang (No. 28) donated $84 million in 2024, giving $4 million to the USA Women’s Rugby team.
The Philanthropy 50 ranking has been running for 25 years. In that span of time, Buffett has been the biggest donor, giving away $49.4 billion.
Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates were second overall, giving $34 billion together, while Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk were third, fourth, and fifth respectively in overall charitable contributions.
Bezos committed $10 billion in 2021 to the Bezos Earth Fund to protect nature and fight climate change while Musk has donated around $7 billion since 2020 to his organization, The Musk Foundation, which supports renewable energy research and science and engineering education.