Warren Buffett tops donors’ list in 2023 ‎

The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual list of the largest charitable donations from individuals or their foundations totaled more than $3.5 billion in 2023. Four universities received major gifts in 2023, along with four scientific research institutes and a health care system. Other donations went to a family foundation and a racial justice group. The list, according to Business Insider, includes 11 gifts. Eight of the donors are billionaires, with a combined net worth of $305.1 billion.

Topping the list is the grant from billionaire Warren Buffett, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes magazine at approximately $119 billion. He gave 1.5 million shares of Berkshire Hathaway Class B stock worth $541.5 million to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named after his first wife, who died in 2004. Buffett’s gift is followed on the list by a donation from the mathematician and founder of the Hedging James Simmons and his wife Marilyn. The couple gave $500 million through the Simmons Foundation to Stony Brook University in New York to support the university’s endowment and promote scholarship, research and clinical care.

In third place on the list was a contribution from Ross Brown, founder of Cryogenic Industries, an industrial equipment manufacturer. In November, Brown made his largest gift to science in 2023 when he pledged $400 million to the California Institute of Technology. Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny have pledged $400 million to a charitable fund. The commitment of the billionaires, who have a net worth of $43 billion, will create the “Rebuild Alpena” project, an effort to revive the economic and cultural prosperity of Alpena, a historic district in Portland, Oregon, that was once a thriving black neighborhood but It fell into the trap of neglect in the 1970s. In fifth place was a gift from financier Kenneth Griffin, who provided $300 million through the Kenneth C. Griffin Charitable Fund to support financial aid and a group of other programs within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University.