The Chronicle Digs Deep to Compile Annual List of Top 50 Donors

The 18th annual Philanthropy 50, the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s list of America’s most generous donors, is based primarily on gifts and pledges of cash, land, and stock to nonprofit organizations.

The Chronicle dug deep, talking to dozens of nonprofits, philanthropists, and their representatives to find out more about large donations that were made public in 2017 as well as the philanthropy of big donors who gave quietly last year.

Although we make an effort to report on as many big contributions as we can, not all philanthropists publicly disclose their gifts, and they are not legally required to do so.

Contributions donors made to family foundations were counted; however, disbursements from those foundations were not included in our rankings, to avoid double-counting.

The Chronicle counts only gifts that donors make to organizations with charity or foundation status under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Some of America’s biggest donors don’t appear on the current Philanthropy 50 even though they wrote big checks to charity last year. That’s because the Chronicle’s rankings count multiyear pledges only once, as a lump sum in the year the commitment was made.

For example, Warren Buffett is missing from this year’s list even though he gave the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation stock valued at nearly $2.4 billion in his Berkshire Hathaway investment firm.

The donation was an annual installment on Mr. Buffett’s 2006 pledge of more than $36 billion in Berkshire shares to the foundation. That same year he also made multibillion dollar pledges to the foundations of his late first wife and his three children.

In compiling the list, the Chronicle counts only the full amount of a pledge in the year it was made, even if it will take years to pay off.

Here’s how much Mr. Buffett gave to charity last year:

• 220,001 shares of class “B” Berkshire stock valued at more than $2.4 billion to the Gates Foundation — the latest installment of his 2006 pledge.
• 422,000 shares valued at $242.1 million to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation — named for Mr. Buffett’s first wife, who died in 2004. To date, he has contributed more than half of approximately $3.6 billion he pledged to the fund.
• 5,396 shares (nearly $169.5 million) apiece to the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which funds agriculture, clean-water, and antipoverty programs; the NoVo Foundation, co-founded by Peter Buffett and his wife, Jennifer, which focuses on the well-being of girls and women globally and supports economic and education programs; and daughter Susan Buffett’s Sherwood Foundation, which backs social-justice work and early-childhood education. Warren Buffett has promised about $1.3 billion apiece to the three foundations and has given each slightly more than $1.1 billion.