Billionaires Who Are Known for Giving Money Away

Pierre Villard/Sipa/Shutterstock / Pierre Villard/Sipa/Shutterstock
Pierre Villard/Sipa/Shutterstock / Pierre Villard/Sipa/Shutterstock

The almost generous among America’s richest billionaires requite away more than than 10% of their fortunes. Some of them are doing their best to give away all of it — or at least every bit much as they tin can while they’re still alive.


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There are, of course, plenty of wealthy people who some recall don’t requite abroad plenty.

On the other end of that spectrum are people similar Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife MacKenzie Scott, a newbie to the billionaire course who has established herself as the most generous person in the post-COVID-19 globe. This article shines a low-cal on people like her, Bill and Melinda Gates and many others who are giving dorsum.

Using data from Forbes’ America’southward Top Givers list, GOBankingRates identified the billionaires who ready an case for others past giving abroad big sums of coin.


Last updated: Apr 27, 2021

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Shutterstock (11556401a)Then-MacKenzie Bezos arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Mandatory Credit: Photo past Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Shutterstock (11556401a)Then-MacKenzie Bezos arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, Calif.

MacKenzie Scott

MacKenzie Scott’southward $five.83 billion in lifetime giving isn’t peculiarly impressive compared to the likes of Warren Buffett, but he’s been a zillionaire forever. Scott only joined the globe’s richest billionaires upon finalizing her divorce from Jeff Bezos in 2019. During the short time between then and now, she has out-donated every other billionaire by a mile. She gave out more grants in half dozen months than the Gates Foundation awards in a year, and the Gates Foundation is like the Walmart of philanthropy. When the Blackness Lives Matter protests erupted in the summer of 2020, Scott gave almost $1.7 billion to 119 racial and social justice organizations. In Dec of the same year, she announced she’d donated near $four.2 billion to near 400 organizations across all fifty states.


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Mandatory Credit: Photo by Andrew Harnik/AP/REX/Shutterstock (5813166w)Warren BuffettHillary Clinton presidential campaign, Omaha, USA - 01 Aug 2016Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett applauds at a rally for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at Omaha North High Magnet School in Omaha, Neb.
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Andrew Harnik/AP/King/Shutterstock (5813166w)Warren BuffettHillary Clinton presidential campaign, Omaha, U.s. – 01 Aug 2016Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett applauds at a rally for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at Omaha North High Magnet School in Omaha, Nib.

Warren Buffett

MacKenzie Scott is the new kid in town who everybody in the billionaire club has their eye on. Warren Buffett, however, has been there for a long time — and when it comes to giving money abroad, in that location is no shut second to the Oracle of Omaha. Buffett has offloaded almost $41 billion over the course of his long and storied career equally the dominate of Berkshire Hathaway. A lot of that is funneled through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with billions more worth of stock going to philanthropic foundations established by his children and tardily married woman. Along with Neb Gates, Buffett launched the Giving Pledge in 2010, the ultimate rich givers social club.


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Bill and Melinda Gates
Pecker and Melinda Gates

Bill and Melinda Gates

Warren Buffett has given abroad more of his personal wealth than anyone, but Bill and Melinda Gates agree the stardom of helming the largest private charitable foundation in the world. It is through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, after all, that then much of Buffett’southward money — and that of and so many others — is transformed into grants that are prepare for distribution to organizations on the ground. The foundation gives about $5 billion in grants every year and the Gateses themselves take given abroad nigh $xxx billion of their own money. During the pandemic, they shifted the foundation’s priorities toward COVID-19 suppression and relief.


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Mandatory Credit: Photo by Ronald Zak/AP/Shutterstock (10318654b)George Soros, Founder and Chairman of the Open Society Foundations, looks before the Joseph A.
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Ronald Zak/AP/Shutterstock (10318654b)George Soros, Founder and Chairman of the Open Order Foundations, looks earlier the Joseph A.

George Soros

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett take given tens of billions of dollars away to charity — admirable, to say the least. Simply both Gates and Buffett accept besides managed to hang onto more $100 billion each. George Soros, on the other hand, is i of the rare lopsided billionaires who has given abroad more he has kept. He’s worth about $8.6 billion merely he’due south donated almost double that amount — well-nigh $16.eight billion in lifetime giving. A politically polarizing individual, the hedge fund tycoon’south pet causes oft focus on racial justice and social change.


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Oil Field sunset
Oil Field sunset

George Kaiser

In 2020, Forbes listed George Kaiser among a tiny sliver of billionaires who gave abroad 20% of their fortunes or more — information technology’s the nearly sectional and generous grouping that Forbes recognizes. He inherited his family’southward oil empire in the 1960s, fabricated a fortune and gave a fortune away. That donated fortune consists of about $1.3 billion, which Kaiser distributed through his George Kaiser Family Foundation. His philanthropy focuses mostly on early childhood teaching, but he’s given more than $100 meg to revitalize the arts district in Tulsa, Oklahoma, lone. During COVID-19, his foundation delivered hundreds of thousands of meals in the city.


See: America’s Most Generous Billionaires

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Reed Saxon/AP/Shutterstock (6317319s)Donald Bren Billionaire developer Donald Bren leaves Los Angeles Superior Court at the lunch break .
Mandatory Credit: Photo past Reed Saxon/AP/Shutterstock (6317319s)Donald Bren Billionaire developer Donald Bren leaves Los Angeles Superior Court at the luncheon interruption .

Donald Bren

Donald Bren is America’s richest real estate mogul. Through his Irvine Company, he owns 115 million square anxiety of real estate, including 125 apartment complexes and 550 role buildings, mostly in Southern California. His pet causes are education and conservation, and he’s flooded both of those causes with cash. He gave $240 million to SoCal schools and universities in the neighborhood of his empire, and over the years, his visitor has donated 50,000 acres of protected parkland.


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Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg

Quondam New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is one of the world’s biggest givers — Forbes estimates he’south donated more than $11 billion over the years. Like Soros, Bloomberg is a politically divisive figure. A lifelong Democrat, Bloomberg switched his party amalgamation to Republican, so to Independent, then back to Democrat. His most passionate charitable causes — climate change and gun control — are every bit polarizing every bit he is, but he also donated $i billion to tobacco cessation, $100 meg to historically Black medical school scholarships and $300 one thousand thousand to COVID-19 relief.


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Mandatory Credit: Photo by Uncredited/AP/Shutterstock (5940314a)Chub Feeney, Charles Stoneham Feeney National League president Chub Feeney sits in the rain at Philadelphia's Veteran Stadium during the Phillies-Los Angeles Dodgers fourth playoff game, .
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Uncredited/AP/Shutterstock (5940314a)Chub Feeney, Charles Stoneham Feeney National League president Chub Feeney sits in the pelting at Philadelphia’due south Veteran Stadium during the Phillies-Los Angeles Dodgers fourth playoff game, .

Charles Feeney

Like George Soros, Chuck Feeney gave abroad more of his fortune — far more — than he kept. It’s hard to imagine, in fact, that anyone has always donated themselves into a worse financial position. And Feeney did information technology on purpose. Co-ordinate to Forbes, the Duty Complimentary Shoppers retail magnate spent decades trying as hard as he could to requite away enough money to die broke. He launched the Giving While Living pledge, which inspired Gates and Buffett to create the Giving Pledge. Subsequently giving abroad $8 billion, almost one-half of which went to education, information technology’due south believed that Feeney has less than $2 million left.


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Just out side of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Oil pumps working away, Image taken from a tripod.
Just out side of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Oil pumps working away, Paradigm taken from a tripod.

Lynn and Stacy Schusterman

Lynn and Stacy Schusterman are the wife and daughter of the belatedly oil magnate Charles Schusterman, whose fortune they use to run their philanthropic foundation. The duo is on a gyre. In 2020, the foundation’due south grantmaking more than than doubled to $400 million. The organization is a major supporter of Feeding America and its nationwide network of food banks. They also give generously to causes that back up affordable housing, and they shifted their priorities to COVID-19 relief during the pandemic. In all, they’ve donated $1.84 billion, more than one-half of what they have.


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Mandatory Credit: Photo by AP/Shutterstock (8819129a)Susan and Michael Dell, Jason Silva Susan and Michael Dell pose with host Jason Silva, left, at The Dell Perspective: The Future of Philanthropy in Menlo Park, CalifThe Dell Perspective: The Future of Philanthropy, Menlo Park, USA - 11 May 2017.
Mandatory Credit: Photograph by AP/Shutterstock (8819129a)Susan and Michael Dell, Jason Silva Susan and Michael Dell pose with host Jason Silva, left, at The Dell Perspective: The Hereafter of Philanthropy in Menlo Park, CalifThe Dell Perspective: The Future of Philanthropy, Menlo Park, United states – xi May 2017.

Michael and Susan Dell

The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation contributed $100 million during the pandemic — $80 meg to healthcare support and $20 million to COVID-nineteen treatment inquiry and development. The couple also pledged a gift of $100 million over 10 years to help lower-income students meliorate their graduation rates at the Academy of Texas at Austin. That’southward where Michael Dell began selling computers out of his dorm room earlier dropping out at 19 years sometime to constitute i of the most of import computer companies in history. Together, the couple has donated $2.25 billion.


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