Billionaires are not only known for their lavish lifestyles, but for their donations as well. However, as per The Chronicle of Philanthropy, the donations from billionaires was at historic lows in 2020. Yet, there were some billionaires who made massive donations, either directly or through their charities. In this article, we’ll take a look at the Americans who donated the most in 2020.
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Americans who donated the most in 2020
We have used the charity data from The Chronicle of Philanthropy to come up with our list of Americans who donated the most in 2020. Following are the Americans who donated the most in 2020:
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Denny Sanford ($224 million)
Denny Sanford is the owner of First Premier Bank, which focuses on offering credit cards to high-risk borrowers. Sanford says he wants to die broke, and so far, has given more than $1.6 billion to charity. Last month, he gifted $300 million to Sanford Health to improve rural care across South Dakota.
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Frederick and June Kummer ($300 million)
Frederick, a St. Louis businessman, and his wife June, gave $300 million to Missouri University of Science and Technology last year. It was the biggest single donation in history for Missouri higher education. Fred is the founder and chairman of St. Louis-based HBE Corp., which is a leading design-build firm for health care.
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Pierre and Pam Omidyar ($441 million)
Pierre Omidyar is the founder of eBay, where he served as chairman from 1998 to 2015. In 2004, he and his wife founded Omidyar Network to fund creative and unique efforts that not only help solve problems but offer sustainability as well. The group is also working to convince business leaders and policymakers that businesses should focus on local communities as well.
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Eric and Wendy Schmidt ($470 million)
Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO, and his wife, Wendy, have been involved in philanthropy for over 13 years now. They have also set up a philanthropic foundation, called Schmidt Futures. Last year, this foundation funded a new program at the University of Cambridge to encourage researchers to take up machine learning and artificial intelligence. Wendy is also the president of the Schmidt Family Foundation.
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John and Laura Arnold ($567 million)
John is the founder of Arnold Ventures LLC, which was formerly known as the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. This successful hedge fund manager shocked everyone in 2012 when he was just 38, announcing that he would no longer manage other people’s money. He and his wife recently committed to give 5% of their wealth annually as a donation to charities.
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Jack Dorsey ($1.1 billion)
Twitter and Square CEO put the amount of $1.1 billion into a fund. By the end of the year, that fund had donated more than $300 million to over 100 non-profits. As per the Chronicle, the donated money was given to groups “working to help people whose lives have been upended by the pandemic and to groups trying to correct the underlying systems that have made the multiple crises of 2020 so much harder for people of color and low-income people.”
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Philip and Penelope Knight ($1.3 billion)
Phil Knight, the co-founder of shoe giant Nike, and his wife Penelope gave $465 million to the University of Oregon for scientific research and other areas of study. The two also donated $900.7 million to their private foundation. Some of those funds were used to fund community groups in Oregon working to help people during the pandemic. Knight retired as chairman of Nike in June 2016 after serving the company for 52 years.
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Michael Bloomberg ($1.6 billion)
Michael is the co-founder of the financial information and media company Bloomberg. He owns about 88% of the company, which has revenue of over $10 billion. He was the former mayor of New York City for 12 years. Bloomberg made donations for arts, education, public health and other causes. He also donated $100 million to four historically Black medical schools for offering scholarships. Previously, he also donated for gun control and climate change.
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MacKenzie Scott ($5.7 billion)
Scott, the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, donated more than $4 billion last year to nearly 400 organizations working to provide Americans with basic needs amid the pandemic. The recipients included community colleges and universities, food banks and meal providers, and many individual YMCAs and YWCAs. In her divorce settlement in 2019, Scott got about a quarter of Amazon’s stock. She is the third richest women on the planet, with a net worth of around $53 billion.
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Jeff Bezos ($10 billion)
Bezos donated $10 billion for the fight against climate change. Specifically, he used the money to launch his Bezos Earth Fund, which would support non-profits working toward climate change. He also donated about $100 million to Feeding America, which supports more than 200 food banks. Amazon founder saw a massive surge in wealth last year. During the pandemic period (March to October 2020), Bezos net worth increased by more than $90 billion.
