Image Source : AP This Sept. 19, 2019 picture reveals Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos arriving to a information convention on the National Press Club in Washington.
The world’s richest particular person made the single-largest charitable contribution in 2020, in keeping with The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual listing of prime donations, a $10 billion reward that’s supposed to assist struggle local weather change.
Amazon’s founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, whose “real-time” value Forbes journal estimates at roughly $188 billion, used the contribution to launch his Bezos Earth Fund. The fund, which helps non-profits concerned within the local weather disaster, has paid out $790 million to 16 teams thus far, in keeping with the Chronicle.
Setting apart Bezos’ whopping reward, although, the sum complete of the highest 10 donations final yr — $2.6 billion — was the bottom since 2011, whilst many billionaires vastly elevated their wealth within the inventory market rally that catapulted expertise shares specifically final yr. According to the left-leaning Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies, from March 18 by means of Dec. 7, 2020, Bezos’ wealth surged by 63%, from $113 billion to $184 billion.
Phil Knight, who along with his spouse, Penny, made the second-and third-largest donations final yr in keeping with the Chronicle, elevated his wealth by about 77% over the identical March-to-December interval. Knight and his spouse gave greater than $900 million to the Knight Foundation and $300 million to the University of Oregon.
Fred Kummer, founding father of building firm HBE Corporation, and his spouse, June, gave $300 million to ascertain a basis to help packages on the Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg and his spouse, Priscilla Chan, delivered the fourth-largest donation on the Chronicle’s listing: A $250 million reward to the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which labored on voting safety points within the 2020 election. Zuckerberg, whose wealth practically doubled to $105 billion within the March-to-December interval in keeping with Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies, has been broadly criticized and been known as to testify earlier than Congress for his firm’s dealing with of disinformation within the runup to the 2020 presidential election.
In the fifth spot was Arthur Blank, co-founder of Home Depot, who gave $200 million by means of his basis to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to construct a brand new hospital.
Bezos and the Zuckerbergs made up the subsequent spots on final yr’s prime 10 listing, with $100 million donations — Bezos for Feeding America to assist meals banks throughout the nation and the Zuckerbergs to the identical election safety group.
They had been adopted by Stephen Ross, founding father of actual property agency Related Companies; David Roux, co-founder of Silver Lake Partners, a private-equity agency, and his spouse, Barbara; George and Renee Karfunkel, real-estate traders; Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot; and Charles Schwab, founding father of Schwab Financial Services, and his spouse, Helen.
Two billionaires who donated closely to charity final yr — MacKenzie Scott, Bezos’ former spouse, and Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter — didn’t make the Chronicle’s listing as a result of no single donation of theirs was giant sufficient to qualify. In February, the Chronicle will publish its listing of the 50 largest donors, which counts cumulative donations, not particular person items.
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