$15 billion to Gates Foundation tops 2021 Chronicle list of big gifts
A $15 billion commitment from Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s endowment tops the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s list of the largest gifts from U.S. philanthropists or their foundations in 2021.
Announced following the disclosure in May that Gates and French Gates were divorcing but would stay on as the foundation’s co-chairs, their largest contribution since they transferred $20 billion in Microsoft stock in 2000 will boost the endowment to approximately $65 billion.
Tied for second place were Phil and Penny Knight’s $500 million pledge to the University of Oregon in support of the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact and George Soros’s $500 million commitment through the Open Society Foundations to Bard College for its endowment. The next largest gift was a $480 million commitment from Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan to Northwestern University in support of the Feinberg School of Medicine and the Institute for Global Health, followed by $350 million from T. Denny Sanford to Sanford Health for a virtual-care hospital and another $300 million from Sanford to Sanford Health for graduate medical education and community health and wellness.
Rounding out the list were a $250 million gift from William H. Goodwin, Jr., his wife, Alice, and their family and the estate of William Hunter Goodwin III to launch Break Through Cancer; $220 million from the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation to create the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance; $200 million from Jeff Bezos to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum to fund an education center and museum renovations; $175 million from Gerald Chan, his family, and the Morningside Foundation to the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School for its endowment; and $166 million from Jackie and Mike Bezos, Jeff Bezos’s parents, to NYU Langone Hospital ̶ Brooklyn in support of efforts to improve the health and well-being of underserved communities.
(Photo credit: Marc Smith via flickr)