There were no surprises at the top of the prestigious “Chronicle of Philanthropy” ranking of benefactors for 2025 – the leader has been the same for three years. Michael Bloomberg — the founder of a financial empire and former mayor of New York — donated $4.3 billion last year. to support art, education, the environment, public health and programs to improve the functioning of city authorities – reports “The Independent”. Right behind him was Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, who donated $3.7 billion to charity, and in third place was American stock investor Warren Buffett, who donated $1.3 billion. for four family foundations supporting various initiatives.
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Not all benefactors are billionaires
The Chronicle of Philanthropy list includes the 50 largest donors in the world. Together, they donated a total of $22.4 billion in 2025. for charity purposes. Most of them represent the financial industry, next is the group from the technology segment, and in third place is real estate.
As “The Independent” points out, not all rich people decide to support charitable causes. Only the 19 richest Americans on the Forbes 400 have donated enough to make it to the philanthropy rankings. In turn, not all donors are known from press headlines and the Internet.
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The biggest beneficiaries of last year's donations were foundations and advisory funds, but also universities and scientific institutions. A lot of money was spent on medical research (including for children and the elderly) and sports.
