26
FRONTRUNNERFORBES.COM OCTOBER 20 20PHILANTHROPY^ BY^ KERRYA.DOLAN,JENNIFER^ WANG,^CHASE^ PETERSON-WITHORN^ ANDCHRISTOPHERHELMAN- PHIL KNIGHT & FAMILY
$39.2 billion^ © • SELF-MADE SCORE:u
SOURCE: Nike
AGE: 82 • RESIDENCE: Hillsboro, OR
PHILANTHROPY SCORE: yy
Knight cofounded $37.4 billion (sales)
Nike in 1964 and retired as chairman in - That same year, he pledged $500
million to his alma mater, the University
of Oregon, for a science campus, and
$400 million to his other alma mater,
Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
The sportswear company pledged $40
million in June to fight systemic racism. - MICHAEL DELL
$35.6 billion (^) © • SELF-MADE SCORE:u
SOURCE: Dell computers
AGE: 55 • RESIDENCE: Austin, TX
PHILANTHROPY SCORE: yy
In July, Dell Technologies, of which Dell
is chairman and chief executive, said it is
exploring a potential spinoff of its nearly
$50 billion stake in VMware, a publicly
traded cloud company.
19. SHELDON ADELSON
$29.8 billion (^) ª • SELF-MADE SCORE:w
SOURCE: Casinos
AGE: 87 • RESIDENCE: Las Vegas, NV
PHILANTHROPY SCORE: yy
Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands lost $985 mil-
lion in the second quarter as its two Ve-
gas casinos and resorts were shuttered due
to the pandemic. Now they’re partially re-
opened, and Adelson says he will continue
paying all his employees through October.
A longtime supporter of Republican candi-
dates, Adelson and his wife, Miriam, have
donated $1.2 million to committees back-
ing President Trump this year, compared
to $20 million in 2016.
20. JACQUELINE MARS
$29 billion (^) ª • SELF-MADE SCORE:o
SOURCE: Candy, pet food
AGE: 80 • RESIDENCE: The Plains, VA
PHILANTHROPY SCORE: N/A
20. JOHN MARS
$29 billion^ ª • SELF-MADE SCORE:o
SOURCE: Candy, pet food
AGE: 84 • RESIDENCE: Jackson, WY
PHILANTHROPY SCORE: N/A
The siblings each inherited an estimated
one-third of the $35 billion (sales) candy
company, which makes Snickers and
M&Ms. Mars also owns Uncle Ben’s rice,
which announced in June, following Black
Lives Matter protests across the country,
that it would “evolve” the brand and was
evaluating how to do so.
GIVING SCORES
Having donated more than $1 billion, the
onetime Enron trader is just one of 10 people
on The Forbes 400 with the highest philanthropy
score: a 5. With his wife, Laura, he runs their
philanthropy through an LLC, Arnold Ventures.
Recent grants include $10 million to generic drug
startup Civica Rx. More controversial: a $4.5
million grant to shoot low-resolution aerial photos
of Baltimore at one-second intervals throughout
the day—purportedly to help catch criminals.
Forbes based our scores on giving as a
percentage of net worth. To do so, we
added the value of lifetime “out the
door” donations to the current Forbes
400 list net worth and then divided
lifetime giving by that amount. Here are
the percentage ranges for each score:
y = gave away less than 1% of fortune
yy = gave away 1% to 4.99%
yyy = gave away 5% to 9.99%
yyyy = gave away 10% to 19.99%
yyyyy = gave away 20% or more
undreds of billions of dollars sit in Forbes 400 members’
private charitable foundations. But because the IRS
effectively requires them to pay out only a tiny fraction
each year, just a sliver of that sum is deployed annually
to causes and communities in need. To shine a light on
those putting their philanthropic dollars to work, we’ve changed the
methodology for The Forbes 400 philanthropy score. Instead of counting
the dollars that list members have parked in their foundations over a
lifetime, we tallied the grants made by those foundations (technically,
“adjusted qualifying distributions”), plus direct gifts we could track, to
estimate how much The Forbes 400 has actually given away. We did not
count gifts to donor-advised funds, except when list members shared
details about grants paid by such funds. We reached out to every list
member for feedback. Some cooperated, providing specific details about
donations and recipients. Others declined to comment. This year’s scoring
was produced with research assistance from advocacy group Global
Citizen and its “Give While You Live” initiative.
H
Our new philanthropy rankings are based
on “out the door” donations.
Grading the Giving
Big Donor
JOHN
ARNOLD
AGE: 46
SOURCE: Hedge funds
NET WORTH: $3.3 billion
PHILANTHROPY: yyyyy
The Forbes 400 Continues on page 84
Research by Sarah Acer, Bliss Cox, Filmona Hailemichael, Victor Grau, Hannah Gross, Lina Joy,
Katherine Love, Refentse Mohloare, Lucas Turner, Krista Vaisman, Chelsey Zhu and the Forbes Wealth Team.
How The Forbes 400’s
Charity Stacks Up
BR
EN
T^ H
UM
PH
RE
1 y 2 y 3 y 4 y 5 y SY
No information about the charitable
giving of 68 Forbes 400 members.
120
90
60
30
Number of
Forbes 400
members