The nation's wealthiest donors gave a total of $7.7 billion in 2013, up 4 percent from 2012, as the median gift amount set a record of $86.1 million, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

According to the Chronicle's annual ranking of the fifty donors in the United States who gave the most, the median gift amount in 2013 was up significantly from $49.6 million in 2012 and well above the pre-recession high of $74.7 million in 2007. The Chronicle also reported that commitments from living donors totaled nearly $6.2 billion in 2013 — almost as much as in the previous two years combined — and that institutions of higher education, private foundations, and hospitals received the greatest number of $1 million-plus gifts, followed by medical research facilities, arts organizations, and human service groups.

Topping the list of donors who gave the most in 2013 were Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, who gave nearly $1 billion in Facebook shares to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. They were followed on the list by the late George Mitchell, an energy tycoon who left an estimated $750 million to his family foundation, and Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penelope, who pledged $500 million to the Oregon Health & Science University Foundation for cancer research, contingent on the university matching the pledge within two years.

While the 30 percent run-up in the stock market certainly had a lot to do with the surge of major gifts in 2013, Claire Costello, a philanthropic executive at U.S. Trust, told the Chronicle that the intergenerational transfer of wealth, which is kicking into high gear, also was a factor and that charities and nonprofits can expect to see more big gifts in 2014 and beyond. "There is a glut of money out there," added Costello.