Zuckerberg gives away $1 billion to charity
Mark Zuckerberg has topped the list of charity donors in 2013. He has donated 18m Facebook shares to three charities – an amount currently valued at around $992m.
In 2012 the Facebook founder and his wife donated the same amount of shares to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. In 2012 the gift was worth around $500m.
Its an interesting choice of recipient for Zuckerberg. Silicon Valley is an area full of entrepreneurs, wealth and technology. But the community foundation is a centre of philanthropy itself.
It encourages donors to “strengthen the common good locally and throughout the world”.
This year’s gift from Mr Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan sets a new record because it comes from philanthropists under 30 years of age.
There has been an increase in the number of gifts of $100m or more in 2013. Fourteen Americans donated gifts at that level, compared with 11 gifts of this amount in 2012.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy based its compilation on the 10 biggest publically announced singe gifts.
Philanthropy from the tech industry is not new. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has several billionaires in its list including Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, Romesh Wadhwani, founder of Symphony Technology Group and Azim Premji chairman of Wipro.
Zuckerberg donated almost double the amount of the next largest donation on the list. Phil Knight, the chairman of Nike donated $500m to Oregon Health & Science University Foundation.
Michael Bloomberg, businessman and former mayor of New York donated $350m to Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
Gates and other philanthropists do not appear on this years list. Donors that pledge money do not necessarily donate the money that year.
Gates pledged around $3.3 billion in 2004. In 2012 he paid $469m to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation leaving only about $70m to pay.
In 2010 Gates, who plans to give away $60 billion, and Warren Buffet asked US billionaires including Zuckerberg to pledge to donate half their fortunes to good causes.
Zuckerberg has proved that he is going to honour that commitment — in style.