Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos tops checklist of richest charitable presents in 2020

By: AP | Silver Spring (maryland) |

Updated: January 5, 2021 10:01:46 am

The world’s richest individual made the single-largest charitable contribution in 2020, based on The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual checklist of high donations, a $10 billion reward that’s meant to assist battle 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 up to now, based on 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, at the same time as many billionaires vastly elevated their wealth within the inventory market rally that catapulted know-how shares particularly final yr. According to the left-leaning Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies, from March 18 by 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 based on 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 development firm HBE Corporation, and his spouse, June, gave $300 million to ascertain a basis to assist applications 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 checklist: 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 almost doubled to $105 billion within the March-to-December interval based on Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies, has been extensively 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 his basis to Children’s healthcare of Atlanta to construct a brand new hospital.
Bezos and the Zuckerbergs made up the following spots on final yr’s high 10 checklist, 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 checklist as a result of no single donation of theirs was massive sufficient to qualify. In February, the Chronicle will publish its checklist of the 50 largest donors, which counts cumulative donations, not particular person presents.