This issue marks the 20th anniversary of the Philanthropy 50, the Chronicle’s annual ranking of the donors who give the most, an important part of our mission to help Americans better understand how the wealthy give.
Because donors aren’t required to disclose how much they give, compiling the Philanthropy 50 requires both extensive research and conversations with billionaires and their philanthropy advisers to verify just how much has been donated.
The Chronicle has made it a top priority over the years to encourage wealthy donors to become more transparent about their giving, and we’ve had quite a bit of success in recent years. In the Philanthropy 50’s earliest days few rich donors were willing to tell us how much money they were putting into their private foundations and donor-advised funds each year.
Bill and Melinda Gates are among the philanthropists who have been open about their giving from the time they first appeared on the list in 2000. They have made the list 11 more times since then. And in an era when economic inequality has ballooned and the public has grown increasingly leery of the motives of the wealthy, I find more and more donors are willing to disclose how much they’re giving and where it’s going. Still, it’s not yet the norm, and we hope that will change.
But the real question I had as we approached this milestone edition of the Philanthropy 50 was what difference did all the giving make? We culled through our coverage of the hundreds of donors who have appeared on the list and delved into what happened in the years since donors made big commitments.
Among the gifts my colleague Jim Rendon explored was a $650 million donation in 2014 from the late philanthropist Ted Stanley to the Broad Institute. That gift helped accelerate research and led to the discovery of 250 previously unidentified genetic markers for mental illness.
Among the many Philanthropy 50 donors I’ve spoken with over the years, the late Ted and Vada Stanly hold a special place in my heart. I first called Ted’s office back in 2005 when I was gathering information for that year’s list and wanted to learn more about his 2005 donations. I was surprised when he asked me to call him at home. When I did, Ted surprised me further by pulling out his giving records for that year and methodically and patiently going through each one of his 2005 charitable donations over the phone.
It was the first of many such yearly conversations because Ted and his wife, Vada, were such prolific donors, they made the list eight times. I’d ring Ted at home and Vada would answer and chat with me for a few minutes and then call Ted to the phone. Giving records in hand, Ted would sit down and talk me through each one of that year’s many contributions. We also talked about the state of the world and family life. Ted believed wholeheartedly that the whole point of having a lot of money was to give much of it away and help a lot of people.
Ted wasn’t naive. He got a kick out of giving big gifts, but he also knew some of his largest donations, like the one to the Broad Institute, would take time to bear fruit and that he probably wouldn’t be alive to see the results. Sadly, neither of the Stanleys are still with us. Vada died in 2013 and Ted in 2016. I truly miss the Stanleys and my annual conversations with Ted, but I know they would be thrilled to see how much the Broad gift has accomplished so far. — MARIA DI MENTO
A Note From the Editor
Good news for our subscribers: Throughout the year you’re going to see a lot more reporting about what big philanthropic commitments are accomplishing. In addition to the research we did to assess the impact of Philanthropy 50 donations, this issue marks the debut of a new series to distill what is working and what’s isn’t.
In the first installment, Marc Gunther explores how grant makers and big donors elevated criminal justice to the forefront of public policy — and what is still left to be done. His reporting offers a playbook for how grant makers and nonprofits can collaborate to make a difference and shows how much persistence it required from dedicated program officers like Helena Huang, now leading the Art for Justice Fund, and others to show why the issue demanded philanthropic dollars.
As we get to work on other articles for this series, let us know what topics you’d like to see us examine. Drop me a line at stacy.palmer@philanthropy.com. — STACY PALMER