WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — All sorts of requests reach the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, via all sorts of methods, but rarely does a meaningful entreaty come via LinkedIn message.
These are the donors who gave the most in 2021, according to the Philanthropy 50, an annual ranking compiled by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. A searchable database with more information on the donors and their beneficiaries is available at philanthropy.com.
A handful of Americans donated at least $1 billion to charity last year, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual ranking of the 50 Americans who gave the most to charity in 2021.
Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates topped the list, pledging $15 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a huge player in global health and American education.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced Wednesday it will add four members to its board of trustees, a first for the Seattle-based philanthropic giant whose decision making has been guided by very few hands since its incorporation in 2000.
It was a healthy year for big gifts to charitable causes in 2021, a year that saw one of the largest multibillion-dollar contributions in more than a decade, according to a Chronicle of Philanthropy tally.
The Giving Pledge announced Tuesday that 14 more billionaires, including the CEOs of DoorDash and Pinterest, had promised in 2021 to donate more than half their fortunes, raising the total to 231 philanthropists from 28 countries.
Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates say they will still work with the Giving Pledge, the campaign they co-founded with Warren Buffett in 2010 to encourage billionaires to donate the majority of their wealth through philanthropy.
NEW YORK (AP) — Melinda French Gates, already one of the world's most prominent philanthropists, will now take on the job of publisher.
Gates has formed a nonfiction imprint with Flatiron Books, a division of Macmillan.
SEATTLE (AP) — The divorce of Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates has been finalized.
The Microsoft co-founder and his wife announced in May they were ending their 27-year marriage and on Monday a King County Superior Court judge signed the dissolution decree.