Giving by the 50 biggest donors in the United States totaled more than $27.7 billion in 2021, with the now-divorced Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates topping the list, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reports.

The total represents a 12.1 percent increase over the $24.7 billion given by the fifty biggest donors in 2020, when Jeff Bezos topped the publication’s annual Philanthropy 50 list, and the $15.8 billion given in 2019, when Michael R. Bloomberg ranked first. In 2021, Gates and French Gates pledged a total of $15 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, followed by Bloomberg, who gave $1.7 billion; hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and his wife, Neri Oxman, who gave $1.2 billion, primarily to Ackman’s Pershing Square Foundation; and Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, who gave $1.05 billion to bolster the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and a donor-advised fund. Rounding out the top 10 are Sergey Brin and Nicole Shanahan ($816 million), Jack Dorsey ($765 million), T. Denny Sanford ($725 million), Phil and Penny Knight ($700 million), Bezos ($511 million), and Patrick and Shirley Ryan ($480 million).

According to the Chronicle, nearly 86 percent ($23.8 billion) of the funds contributed by donors on the list went to colleges and universities, hospitals, foundations, and donor-advised funds, a disappointment for charity advocates who had hoped that broader giving in 2020, including to food banks, racial-justice groups, historically Black colleges and universities, and human services organizations, marked a turning point in giving by the ultra-wealthy. Exceptions include Dorsey, who gave significantly in support of social justice and pandemic relief efforts, and MacKenzie Scott, who awarded at least $2.8 billion to charities last year, including large donations to racial justice groups, but is not included in the list as neither she nor her representatives would confirm to the Chronicle how those gifts were made.

Additional highlights from the report include Jared and Monica Isaacman, whose largest gift was tied to the first orbital space flight with a civilian crew; Austin Russell, who at 26 is the youngest donor in the Philanthropy 50; and Mark and Robyn Jones, who gave $101 million in support of nursing programs and healthcare services for people in rural Montana.

“From this list, you would not know that we’re living through a global pandemic, and you would not know that as a society we’re grappling with racial inequity,” Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, told the Chronicle. “This gift list is completely disconnected from the reality of our society right now.”

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