The World’s Biggest Givers

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At Forbes we spend a lot of time calculating the billions that people have amassed. We also track what they give away. Based on our recent analysis, we have identified what looks like a pretty elite club: 19 people who have already donated at least $1 billion each to charities or foundations. That is five more than we found two years ago. More than two-thirds of these philanthropists (13 to be exact) are from the U.S. and all but one is a self-made entrepreneur.

No surprise at the very top of the list: Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates is the most generous person on the planet in dollar terms, having gifted $28 billion to his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has become the preeminent philanthropic institution in the world. He has given away more than three times as much as his good friend Warren Buffett, who moves up two spots to number two, ahead of George Soros ($8 billion) and Intel co-founder Gordon Moore ($6.8 billion).

Buffett used to famously brag that he wouldn’t give his money away until after his death. He had a change of heart and in 2006 announced he’d transfer $30 billion in stock over 20 years into the Gates foundation. He has since given away $8.3 billion including $1.9 billion last year.

Click here to read bios of the World’s Biggest Givers

Now he and Gates are trying to get others to follow suit. Last year they created the Giving Pledge to spur America’s wealthiest individuals and families to give away the majority of their fortunes to charity, [either during their lifetimes or after they die.] So far 69 have signed up including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and hedge fund tycoon Ray Dalio. But many are still in the early stages of giving it away. We count just 10 on the Giving Pledge, including Gates and Buffett, who have already handed over $1 billion or more. (Not to be confused with the size of their foundations, we are measuring what they personally handed over at time of gift on non-inflation adjusted basis.)

Some of the others are New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Ted Turner, James Stowers and Jon Huntsman. Stowers is probably the least known of that bunch but in percentage terms is the most generous. The mutual fund tycoon who has not been a member of the Forbes 400 since 2000 has given away roughly 95% of his fortune to endow the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, which performs genetic research targeted at advancing the understanding of cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other conditions.

A 1992 cancer diagnosis turned chemicals mogul Huntsman into one of the world’s most generous philanthropists. On the way to the hospital for his first treatment of prostate cancer he made three stops, dropping $1 million at a homeless shelter, $1 million at a soup kitchen and 500,000 at the clinic that had found the malignancy. Nearly two decades later, he’s given away $1.2 billion, mostly to his cancer foundation. “The time to give away money is when you make it,” he told my colleague David Whelan who spoke with him recently about his philanthropy.

Recent gifts including $26 million to Washington State University to complete its School of Global Animal Health have pushed Paul Allen into the ranks of billion-dollar donors. In a note to Whelan, who compiled most of the charitable giving numbers for the Americans, the Microsoft co-founder said that science had become a priority for his personal giving. His foundation gives grants to those exploring “edgy neuroscience.” His Brain Institute just released a $55 million digital atlas of the brain. He also continues to support Pacific Northwest charities, explaining that he thinks “it’s important to give at home.”

One of the biggest donors of 2010 was India’s Azim Premji, the head of outsourcing firm Wipro. Premji started his foundation in 2001 with shares worth $125 million. Last year he donated shares worth $2 billion to a trust that will go to the foundation to help public schools in India’s heartland by training teachers and improving curriculum. His new Azim Premji University to train teachers is opening this July.

Perhaps the most unexpected member of this elite group is the richest person in the world, Carlos Slim Helu. At Forbes’ Global CEO conference in Sydney last year, Slim scoffed at the “trillions of dollars” given to charity that have yet to “solve any of the world’s problems.” Weeks later at a conference in the U.S. he questioned Gates and Buffett’s decisions to give away their personal wealth, saying that it was “an interesting idea… but it won’t solve any problems.”

Still he has put $4 billion, mostly from dividends, into his foundation, and is working alongside well known philanthropies such as the Clinton Initiative and the Gates Foundation.

This is not an easy list to make. Forbes honed in on individuals, not large, extended families. Only gifts, not pledges, that have been paid out during the person’s lifetime were counted. So Blackstone cofounder Peter Peterson, who has pledged $1 billion of his fortune but has so far donated an estimated $450 million, does not yet make the list.

Forbes also valued the donations at the time they were made and therefore did not adjust for inflation, which excluded some philanthropists whose giving, when adjusted, would exceed $1 billion. Exchange rates too were calculated at the time of the gift. SAP cofounder Hans Plattner who gave $900 million in 1998, easily equivalent to more than a billion today, doesn’t make the cut.

Click here to read more about the World’s Biggest Givers

If you think there is someone missing from our billion dollar donors club, or know of someone who is getting close, please post a comment or email me at lkroll@forbes.com

Research for this report by David Whelan, Kerry Dolan, Naazneen Karmali, Luisa Kroll & Cristina von Zeppelin

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Family finds $45,000 in new home — then returns it

By CHI-CHI ZHANG, Associated Press – Thu May 19, 8:50 pm ET

SALT LAKE CITY – When Josh Ferrin closed on his family's first home, he never thought he'd make the discovery of a lifetime — then give it back.

Ferrin picked up the keys earlier this week and decided to check out the house in the Salt Lake City suburb of Bountiful. He was excited to finally have a place his family could call their own.

As he walked into the garage, a piece of cloth that clung to an attic door caught his eye. He opened the hatch and climbed up the ladder, then pulled out a metal box that looked like a World War II ammunition case.

"I freaked out, locked it my car, and called my wife to tell her she wouldn't believe what I had found," said Ferrin, who works as an artist for the Deseret News in Salt Lake City.

Then he found seven more boxes, all stuffed full with tightly wound rolls of cash bundled together with twine — more than $40,000.

Ferrin quickly took the boxes to his parent's house to count. Along with his wife and children, they spread out thousands of bills on a table, separating the bundles one by one.

They stopped counting at $40,000, but estimated there was at least $5,000 more on the table.

Ferrin thought about how such a large sum of money could go a long way, pay bills, buy things he never thought he could afford.

"I'm not perfect, and I wish I could say there was never any doubt in my mind. We knew we had to give it back, but it doesn't mean I didn't think about our car in need of repairs, how we would love to adopt a child and aren't able to do that right now, or fix up our outdated house that we just bought," Ferrin said. "But the money wasn't ours to keep and I don't believe you get a chance very often to do something radically honest, to do something ridiculously awesome for someone else and that is a lesson I hope to teach to my children."

He thought about the home's previous owner, Arnold Bangerter, who died in November and left the house to his children.

"I could imagine him in his workshop. From time to time, he would carefully bundle up $100 with twine, climb up into his attic and put it into a box to save. And he didn't do that for me," Ferrin said of the man who had worked as a biologist for the Utah Department of Fish and Game.

Bangerter purchased the home in 1966 and lived there with his wife, who died in 2005.

After most of the money was counted, Ferrin called one of Bangerter's sons with the news.

Kay Bangerter said he knew his father hid away money because he once found a bundle of cash taped beneath a drawer in their home, but he never considered his dad had stuffed away so much over the years.

"He grew up in hard times and people that survived that era didn't have anything when they came out of it unless they saved it themselves," Kay Bangerter, the oldest of the six children, told the Deseret News. "He was a saver, not a spender."

Bangerter called the money's return "a story that will outlast our generation and probably yours as well."

"I'm a father, and I worry about the future for my kids," Ferrin said. "I can see him putting that money away for a rainy day and it would have been wrong of me to deny him that thing he worked on for years. I felt like I got to write a chapter in his life, a chapter he wasn't able to finish and see it through to its conclusion."

Daily Habits That Keep Me Out of Debt

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People generally get into debt because of the "compounded disinterest" they have in their finances over the course of many years. To get out of debt, I had to take an interest in my finances and know what was coming in and out. I had to increase my income to maintain my lifestyle, and I had to get radical about paying off debt.

My goal was to be out of debt by age 30. I succeeded by asking myself five key questions every day about my spending habits and finances. Some people talk about "good debt, bad debt," but I'm of the school of thought that all debt is bad debt. I don't like Dave Ramsey's idea of living on just beans and rice (literally) or buying a beat-up car. But I do believe that living debt-free is psychologically liberating.

Here are the five questions I asked myself to get out of debt for good:

Could I do this myself?

Before paying someone else to do something for me, I'd consider whether I could do it myself. Everyone has down time. If you have a Type A personality, consider washing your car as your meditation break. Mow the lawn for exercise.

Am I putting aside money for a car and a house?

Almost everyone wants their own car and house. If you already have a mortgage, think about adding extra payments to your monthly budget. If you don't own a home, put aside a 20 percent down payment on a house. If it's your first house, you may be able to use money from a Roth IRA. Even when you are out of debt, you will always need to save for a car and possibly a new home.

Could I do something else to make money?

Sometimes your debt is stagnant because you just aren't making enough money. Every day, explore the possibilities for increasing your income. Look at passive income streams as well, such as receiving dividends (company profit that's given to shareholders) and residuals from work. I doubled my income within months by writing daily goals to accomplish more work as a freelance writer.

Do I already have this item?

Before buying something new, consider whether you already own it or something similar. Many times I've gone shopping for a tablecloth or window covering, when what I really wanted was in a drawer or closet at home. Shop at your own house before you go to the mall.

Can I pay cash?

If you can't pay cash and need to use credit, that's a red flag. Researchers say people spend less money when they use cash instead of plastic. One of the worst signs of financial trouble: using credit to buy groceries. To become wealthy and stay out of debt, you have to keep more than you make. Work with cash only until you can stick to a budget.

When I started my plan to get out of debt by 30, I was in my 20s and had a lot of debts. The worst were car and college loans. It felt wonderful to write the last check to the loan repayment center. Today, I'm working on paying off my mortgage early with my financial partner (husband).