I’m not sure there’s any lesson here, but I just can’t resist browsing through lists like this.
From the Chronicle of Philanthropy, here’s a list of America’s Top 50 donors in 2011, the amounts given and the lucky charities.
These 50 donors gave $10.4 billion … although #1, Margaret Cargill, an heir to the fortune of her grandfather’s Cargill Corporation (agriculture and food production), gave $6 billion of that in a bequest to her two foundations (which give to the American Red Cross, Nature Conservancy, YMCA and Public Broadcasting Service, among others).
Twenty-nine donors gave $50 million or more.
My favorite is Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder. Wonderfully eclectic giving — arts, social services, a rock music museum, Native Americans entrepreneurship, a science fiction museum, and neuroscience. He’s the guy on this list I’d most want to have dinner with.
Tom
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This is an amazing list and what is more amazing are some of the “young” couples featured.
Working for a community-based grassroots group, we believe in being inclusive and valuing every member…but this part of the article drives that home on another level. .A large organization like a hospital might not give deep attention to someone looking to donate a computer. Lucky for this one, they did – and I’m guessing their actual work was also impressive! Wow.
This article is also yet another kick in my pants to update our website, mail appeals and fundraising talking points to include talk about planned giving …seems much of the money was from bequests.
“Another gift began with an offer some fundraisers might have overlooked. Robert L. Tidwell (tied for No. 43), a private investor, contacted the Children’s Hospital of Orange County in 2004, saying he wanted to donate a computer. Staff members from the California hospital’s foundation later invited him to tour the facility. Last year, when Mr. Tidwell died, he left the foundation his entire fortune, $30-million.”
If you like lists like that, you might like http://www.milliondollarlist.org/#
(Full disclosure, though I wasn’t involved in the project, the company I work for built the site).