Here Are the Year's Biggest Charitable Gifts

Reed Hastings of Netflix tops the list
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Dec 18, 2024 10:10 AM CST
2024's Biggest Charitable Gifts
Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings smiles during an interview in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 28, 2017.   (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez, File)

The Chronicle of Philanthropy's annual list of the biggest charitable donations from individuals or their foundations totaled nearly $6 billion in 2024, with half of that coming from three contributions of $1 billion or more each, the AP reports. Two of those three gifts went to medical schools to provide financial aid. Altogether, four of the top donations on the list, totaling $2.3 billion, went to support financial aid. Three contributions were made to donors' own foundations, and those gifts totaled $2.3 billion as well. Three other donations supported medical research or treatment, and one gift each went to support civic engagement and arts/culture. The list has 12 gifts, rather than 10, because of ties. Six of the donors are multibillionaires, and their combined net worth is an estimated $365 billion.

  1. Topping the list is a gift from Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, whose net worth Forbes estimates at more than $5 billion. Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin, gave 2 million shares of Netflix stock valued at $1.1 billion in January to their Hastings Fund, which primarily supports education organizations, at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
  2. Next on the list is the $1 billion Michael Bloomberg gave through his Bloomberg Philanthropies to Johns Hopkins University to make medical school free for most students and provide more financial aid to the university's nursing and public health students.
  3. Ruth Gottesman, a professor emerita of Albert Einstein College of Medicine's Department of Pediatrics, had the same goal as Bloomberg. She gave her former employer $1 billion in February to support free tuition in perpetuity for the college's med students.
  4. Berkshire Hathaway's chairman and CEO, Warren Buffett, follows Gottesman and Bloomberg with a big gift of his own. The famous financier gave 1.5 million shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock valued at $716.1 million in November to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for his first wife, who died in 2004. It primarily backs women's reproductive health, as well as provides college scholarships.
See the complete list here. (More charitable giving stories.)

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