2012 Philanthropic Heavy Hitters

The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently published their infamous The 50 most generous Donors of the year list for 2012. Last year, this group of generous donors gave a combined $7.4 billion. The trend in this year’s list seems to be to support Colleges and Universities with 48% of this year’s top 50 donors giving the majority of their donations to this cause. Compare that to the next major cause, Health, which only receives from 15% of the top 50, and it is interesting to note the emphasis on higher education.

As seems to be commonplace and recurring, these donors gave substantial gifts to their own foundations. However, below is a list of sizeable gifts made to non-profit organization rated by Charity Navigator:

Donor(s)                                                          Organization

Irwin and Joan Jacobs                                       Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego

John and Penny Paulson                                    Central Park Conservancy

David Koch                                                      Metropolitan Museum of Art

Vance Kondon, Elisabeth Giesberger                Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

Brooke Astor                                                   New York Community Trust

Fred Fields                                                       The Oregon Community Foundation

Garthe and Grace Brown                                  The Oregon Community Foundation

Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver                      The Community Foundation in Jacksonville

Mortimer Zuckerman                                         Columbia University

Carl Icahn                                                         Mount Sinai School of Medicine

James Spilker Jr., Anna Marie Spilker                  Stanford University (Engineering)

Joseph and Katherine O’Donnell                        Harvard University

Phil and Penelope Knight                                   Oregon Health & Science University Foundation

Eugene Lang                                                      Swarthmore College

George Roberts                                                 Claremont McKenna College

Ronald Perelman                                               University of Pennsylvania

Leon and Debra Black                                      Dartmouth University

David Rubenstein                                              Duke University

Michael and Marilyn Quinlan                             Loyola University Chicago (Business)

Richard Driehaus                                              DePaul University

Ethel Strong Allen                                             Hackley School

It is nice to see people giving back! To non-profits that are well rated at that!

For the fun of it, here is a good trivia question:

Who was this year’s biggest donor?

I’ll post the answer on this blog tomorrow. Check back here soon!