There are many greedy wealthy people and corporations who don't believe in giving in back. There are also wealthy generous people who believe in giving back. I am dedicating this thread to those generous people who believe in giving back and giving to charitable causes. There are many others out there. Athletes, entertainers, business leaders, and other professions. The following list of people are just the start.
Quote:We all know how great giving back feels. Donating, whether it’s time, money or other assets, puts a spring in our step and breeze through our hair. But who are the most philanthropic people in the world? Let’s take a look:
1. Warren Buffet: One of the world’s richest people says he views his money as “claim checks” on society that he can turn into consumption to improve the gross domestic product. In 2006, Buffet pledged stocks worth about $30 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest charitable contribution of all time. He often auctions himself off for dinner on Ebay, raising close to $1 million dollars per meal. He plans to donate his fortune once he dies, because he believes great wealth should not pass from one generation to the next, but instead should move out into the world to make a more lasting, widespread impact.
2. Bill and Melinda Gates: The founder of Microsoft and grandfather of the tech start-up world, Bill Gates is the co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the wealthiest charity in the world with assets estimated at $34.6 billion. Gates has cited David Rockefeller as a major influence on his philanthropic work and has extensively studied the Rockefeller Family’s charitable pursuits. Gates and his wife Melinda have donated over $28 billion to charity and plan on donating 95% of their fortune when they die.
3. Sir Ka-shing Li: Hong Kong business magnate Ka-Shing Li is the richest man in Asia, with his companies comprising 15% of the market cap on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. However, Li is best known for leading a no-frills lifestyle and donating about $1.3 billion of his wealth to charity. Most of his donations go to universities around the world, such as Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the University of California, Berkley, Stanford University and the University of Alberta. He also founded Shantou University near his hometown of Chaozhou. Li’s charitable work has earned him the Grand Bauhinia Medal, the highest honor in Hong Kong, the Order of the British Empire and the Legion of Honor.
4. Chuck Feeney: Baseball executive and businessman, Feeney founded The Atlantic Philanthropies, one of the largest foundations in the world. Atlantic has donated more than $6.2 billion since 1982 to social projects in Australia, Bermuda, Northern Ireland, South Africa, the United States and Vietnam. The foundation is the largest funder of ageing and immigration reform in the United States and has given numerous gifts to Feeney’s alma mater, Cornell University. Feeney’s philosophy is “Giving While Living.”
5. George Soros: Hungarian-born business magnate and investor, Soros gave away $8 billion between 1979 and 2011, mainly to peaceful political movements and educational institutions. In the 1970’s, Soros funded black students in South Africa to attend university under apartheid and worked to promote democracy in post-Soviet states. His foundation, Open Society Foundations, helped assist the transition to capitalism in his native Hungary, and gave large funds to Central European University in Budapest. Soros also donated $100 million toward increased Internet access in rural Russian universities and $50 million toward the Millennium Promise. Soros’s political activism has long spurred his charitable work.
These philanthropists have dedicated their lives and fortunes to humanitarian causes throughout the world and can serve as an inspiration to all of us to give back and fuel the causes and institutions in which we most steadfastly believe.
– Jenny Wheeler
https://borgenproject.org/biggest-philanthropists-world/