Michael Bloomberg has ended his reign at City Hall, but he’s still a king among philanthropists, placing third on a new list of 2013’s most generous donors.
The three-term mayor snagged his spot on the annual ranking by The Chronicle of Philanthropy with a $350 million pledge to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
The year’s largest announced gift came from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, The Chronicle reported. They gave 18 million shares of Facebook stock valued at more than $990 million to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
Second place went to Nike co-founder Philip Knight and his wife, Penelope, for their $500 million pledge to Oregon Health and Science University for cancer research.
Overall, wealthy philanthropists opened their wallets wider last year than in 2012, with gifts of $1 million or more totaling nearly $9.6 billion in 2013, compared to $6.1 billion a year earlier, The Chronicle found.
The latest tally listed 15 gifts of $100 million or more in 2013, compared to 11 gifts of that size a year earlier.
Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs and wife Joan came in eighth place with a $133 million donation to Cornell NYC Tech.
Numerous donors tied for 10th place with $100 million pledges.
Billionaire businessman David Koch made a $100 million pledge to New York-Presbyterian Hospital for a new ambulatory care center, and Ronald Perelman pledged $100 million to Columbia Business School for a new building and program bearing his name.
