Michael Bloomberg brings the same approach
Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2025 4:55 am
to giving away money as he does to making it. From a fortune amassed by providing precise information to the financial services industry, he has so far donated more than $21 billion to causes ranging from climate to education to the arts.
Last year alone, Bloomberg gave $3.7 billion, making him 2024’s largest individual donor, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy (he was 2023’s biggest giver as well). Noteworthy grants included $1 billion to Bloomberg’s alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, to make medical school free for most students and increase financial aid for nursing and public-health students, plus $600 million to boost medical-school endowments at four historically Black colleges and universities. Earlier this year, Bloomberg c level contact list Philanthropies also announced plans to support efforts to honor the country’s commitments under the Paris Agreement following the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the international agreement.
Oprah Winfrey has so many titles—star, media tycoon, billionaire, pioneer, humanitarian, proto-influencer—that it’s easy to forget how significant she is as a philanthropist. She has given away more than $500 million with the kind of enthusiasm with which she gave out new cars on TV.
Her foundation’s focus has been on female education—seeing girls graduate from the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, established in 2004, is “one of the greatest rewards in her life,” she has said. But she also personally steps in whenever and wherever she sees a need. She donated $20 million to fight food insecurity during the pandemic, contributed $24 million to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture as a founding (and its largest) donor, and gave tens of millions to aid recovery after devastating wildfires in Maui in 2023 and Los Angeles in January.
Last year alone, Bloomberg gave $3.7 billion, making him 2024’s largest individual donor, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy (he was 2023’s biggest giver as well). Noteworthy grants included $1 billion to Bloomberg’s alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, to make medical school free for most students and increase financial aid for nursing and public-health students, plus $600 million to boost medical-school endowments at four historically Black colleges and universities. Earlier this year, Bloomberg c level contact list Philanthropies also announced plans to support efforts to honor the country’s commitments under the Paris Agreement following the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the international agreement.
Oprah Winfrey has so many titles—star, media tycoon, billionaire, pioneer, humanitarian, proto-influencer—that it’s easy to forget how significant she is as a philanthropist. She has given away more than $500 million with the kind of enthusiasm with which she gave out new cars on TV.
Her foundation’s focus has been on female education—seeing girls graduate from the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, established in 2004, is “one of the greatest rewards in her life,” she has said. But she also personally steps in whenever and wherever she sees a need. She donated $20 million to fight food insecurity during the pandemic, contributed $24 million to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture as a founding (and its largest) donor, and gave tens of millions to aid recovery after devastating wildfires in Maui in 2023 and Los Angeles in January.