Giving by the fifty biggest donors in the United States totaled $24.7 billion in 2020, with Jeff Bezos topping the list, theChronicle of Philanthropyreports.
The total represents a significant increase over the$15.8 billiongiven by the fifty biggest donors in 2019, whenMichael R. Bloombergtopped the publication's annualPhilanthropy 50list, and the $7.8 billion given in 2018, when Bezos and his then-wife,MacKenzie Scott, ranked first. In 2020, Bezos committed a total of $10.15 billion to charity, including$10 billionto launch the Bezos Climate Fund; the Amazon.com founder was followed on the list by Scott ($5.73 billion), Bloomberg ($1.6 billion), Phil and Penny Knight ($1.36 billion), Jack Dorsey ($1.1 billion),John and Laura Arnold($567 million), Eric and Wendy Schmidt ($469 million),Pierre and Pam Omidyar($441 million), Frederick and June Kummer ($300 million), andDenny Sanford($224 million).
In a year dominated by a global pandemic, a reckoning in the United States with the country's long history of racial injustice, and a sharp economic downturn followed by a K-shaped recovery, the ultra-wealthy supported a broader range of causes than has been the case in recent years, theChroniclereports, including food pantries, human services agencies, racial justice organizations, and historically Black colleges and universities.
TheChroniclenotes that of the individuals included in the most recent edition of the Forbes 400 — which has Bezos in the top spot — only twenty-three appear among its list of the top fifty donors in 2020, accounting for giving of $22.7 billion, withBill and Melinda Gates($157 million) andMark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan($120 million), who rank second and third on the Forbes 400, occupying the thirteenth and sixteenth spots. Of the 154 signatories to theGiving Pledge, nineteen qualified for the Philanthropy 50 list, accounting for a total of $9.8 billion in giving.
Giving PledgerElon Musk, who recently surpassed Bezos as the richest person in the world and did not make theChronicle's list, recently pledged $100 million in support of climate change mitigation efforts.
"It's unconscionable for someone like that to not give in a meaningful way," Center for Effective Philanthropy president Phil Buchanan, referring to Musk, told theChronicle.
