A “behemoth of benefaction” is how my colleague Geoff Colvin describes Bill Gates’ philanthropic organization, the Gates Foundation. And indeed, it’s the largest private foundation in the world, built upon the staggering wealth Gates created at Microsoft, along with some $40 billion pitched in by his friend and fellow philanthropist, the investor Warren Buffett. Having spent an average of $5 billion a year for 25 years, Gates today promised the foundation will spend another $10 billion a year until 2045, the largest philanthropic commitment in modern history—at which point it will shut down its operations.
Those mind-boggling sums look small, however, in comparison with the annual largesse of another group: Americans as a whole. American individuals, corporations, and foundations reported a total of $557 billion in charitable donations in 2023, according to data compiled by the Giving USA Foundation—with $417 billion of that coming from individuals via donations or bequests. “The U.S. is a very generous nation,” the organization’s chair, Wendy McGrady, told me (and indeed, the World Giving Index has consistently listed it as one of the most generous countries). “We have a very philanthropically minded citizenry.”
