Michael Bloomberg has topped the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Philanthropy 50 list for the third consecutive year, donating $4.3 billion in 2025 to support arts, education, the environment, public health and city government programmes. The former New York mayor and founder of the Bloomberg financial-news empire was followed by three donors who each gave $1 billion or more: Bill Gates ($3.7 billion to the Gates Foundation), the late Paul Allen ($3.1 billion bequest for science and technology) and Warren Buffett ($1.3 billion to four family foundations).
Together, the 50 donors contributed $22.4 billion to charity last year, with a median gift of $105 million. The financial industry produced the most donors (20, giving $4.1 billion), followed by technology (12 donors, $10 billion) and real estate (four donors, $466.7 million). Most donors reside in New York and California, and nonprofits in those states received the largest share of gifts.
Among the list’s lesser-known philanthropists are Jon and Mindy Gray (No. 34, $63.6 million), who primarily support research into inherited cancers linked to BRCA mutations—after Mindy’s sister died of BRCA-related ovarian cancer—and empower young people in New York City. Their Gray Scholars programme provides scholarships for 10 New York City students each year to attend a historically Black college or university.
High-profile philanthropist MacKenzie Scott did not appear on the list, despite having donated some $26 billion since 2020, because she and her representatives declined to disclose gifts to donor-advised funds that might have qualified. The Chronicle found that more than 35 of 51 donors had long-term relationships with the charities they supported, often lasting five to ten years or more.
Foundations, donor-advised funds and universities were the biggest recipients. Science and technology received over $3 billion, including Paul Allen’s bequest and a $60 million donation to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Health care and medical research got $1.5 billion, including $500 million from Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife for cancer research, plus several eight- and nine-figure gifts for paediatric healthcare and dementia research.
