According to The Week, a 12-year-old boy in Wisconsin has saved his grandmother's house from foreclosure. A youth with a history of community service, Noah Lamaide created a website to highlight his projects. In January, he edited his site to highlight the plight of his grandmother, who fell behind on mortgage payments after medical complications. Donations poured in, saving the home.
Reader comments praised the boy and the happy bit of news, claiming it was refreshing to read a positive news story for a change. Fortunately, other philanthropists, Good Samaritans, and do-gooders make the news cycle rather frequently. A look at famous philanthropists:
Bill Gates: The founder and former CEO of Microsoft is the world's most generous philanthropist. He and his wife, Melinda, created the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 1994, according to the foundation's website. To date, the organization, with the help of many wealthy donors in addition to Gates (formerly the richest person in the world), has donated more than $26 billion. Current endowment of the foundation is about $33.5 billion.
Warren Buffet: In June 2006 this billionaire investor and philanthropist donated 10 million shares of his Berkshire Hathaway stock, to be distributed over time, to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a gift worth some $31 billion. All remaining shares of Berkshire Hathaway owned by Buffet at the time of his death are to be used for philanthropic purposes within ten years.
Chuck Feeney: According to givingpledge.org, Feeney is one of the many billionaires who has joined Gates and Buffet in pledging to donate the majority of their wealth to charity. Feeney, the founder of The Atlantic Foundation (formerly The Atlantic Charities), has given some $5.5 billion to the foundation since the early 1980s.
Walter Annenberg: This wealthy publisher and former U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, according to the University of Southern California, is estimated to have donated some $2 billion during the course of his lifetime, mostly to educational institutions. Dying at age 94 in 2002, Annenberg was deceased when the Giving Pledge was made public in 2010.
Ted Turner: Forbes reports the founder of CNN and, until recently, biggest landowner in the United States has donated more than $1.5 billion to charity, including a billion-dollar pledge to the United Nations. He is also a signatory of the Giving Pledge.
T. Boone Pickens: The T. Boone Pickens Foundation reports that this oil billionaire has donated nearly $1 billion during his philanthropic career, especially to Oklahoma State University, his alma mater, and two leading medical institutions in Texas. Like the aforementioned philanthropists in this listing, Pickens is also a signatory of the Giving Pledge.
John D. Rockefeller: The wealthiest man in history, owner of Standard Oil John D. Rockefeller created the Rockefeller Foundation in 1913. Since then it has donated roughly $14 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars to charity, with major original contributions to education, the Red Cross, and medical research.
Andrew Carnegie: The second-wealthiest man in history and a key inspiration for John D. Rockefeller's future philanthropy, steel magnate Andrew Carnegie donated over $350 million before his death in 1919, reports PBS. In current figures the $350 million, gained from the sale of the Carnegie Steel Company in 1901 for over $450 million, would easily equal many billions of dollars. Carnegie donated frequently to educational institutions and foundations.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy, found at philanthropy.com, lists major individual contributors to charitable causes by year.
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