Top 10 Philanthropists of Our Time

Philanthropy is donating money, goods or services for an extended period of time and is usually intended to promote good in the world. The people listed below are very wealthy individuals. Being wealthy is not a requirement to partake in philanthropy, it is giving something to promote well-being. The people ranked below are ranked accordingly to the amount given or pledged.

1. Warren Buffett (Bio), Berkshine Hathaway
   
• A monumental gift announced in June, Buffett's $31-billion commitment to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will fund efforts to improve global health and U.S. education. Buffett, the world's second-richest man, also earmarked billions for the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and the NoVo Foundation--independent family foundations that support causes ranging from reproductive health to worldwide conservation.


2. Bill and Melinda Gates, Microsoft
• With $31 billion in assets, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the world's largest charity. And its endowment is expected to double, thanks to a long-term gift from investor Warren Buffett, who installed the first $1.6-billion contribution over the summer. The Gateses' mission is to alleviate global poverty and find a cure for AIDS and other fatal diseases, provide access to information technology in libraries, and turn around America's schools. They will begin construction on a new headquarters for their foundation in downtown Seattle early next year.


3. George Soros, Investor
• Investor George Soros distributes $400 million or more each year through his charitable network. In 2005, he shelled out an extra $200 million for his Central European University, a graduate school he helped found in Budapest in 1991. An immigrant from Hungary who made his first billion dollars in England, Soros has a passion for politicking, giving millions each year to promote open and democratic societies.


4. Gordon and Betty Moore, Intel
• With charitable gifts totaling well above $7 billion, the Moores are serious conservationalists. In 2001, the couple gave $5 billion to their San Francisco-based foundation, headquartered in an eco-friendly "Green Building," for worldwide environmental research. The Moores also fund scientific and nursing initiatives in the Bay Area, working closely with the California Institute of Technology and local hospitals.


5. Herbert and Marion Sandler, Golden West
• The Sandlers have given generously to cure asthma and deadly African diseases such as malaria. The press-shy couple from California also support education, social reform and progressive government, and Jewish causes. Last year they doled out $1 million for stem cell research.


6. Eli and Edythe Broad, SunAmerica KB
   
• The Broads, who own some 800 pieces of contemporary art, are building a new 60,000-square-foot gallery at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This year they gave $25 million to the University of Southern California for stem cell research and have given generously to other schools in the past. The Broad Foundations (yes, there are three of them) not only tackle education, science, and the arts, but they also help fund civic initiatives like the Grand Avenue Project in downtown Los Angeles and the nearby Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall.


7. Walton Family, Wal-Mart
• The world's richest family is also one of the most united when it comes to philanthropy. The Waltons commit the bulk of their gifts through the Walton Family Foundation, which has given more than $1 billion to a variety of charitable causes over the past 20 years. Their areas of focus: K-12 education reform, quality of life initiatives in Northwest Arkansas (home to Wal-Mart), economic development initiatives in the Mississippi Delta region of the U.S., and most recently, marine and fresh-water fishing sustainability initiatives.


8. Donald Bren, Real Estate
• Bren's commitment to education runs the gamut from students to principals to school districts to university scholars on his Irvine Ranch. On top of a $20-million gift to fund elementary fine arts, music, and science programs at schools in Irvine, Calif., Bren quietly gave away properties worth hundreds of million of dollars this year to recipients such as schools and retirement communities.


9. Bernard Osher, Investing
• This year Osher funneled more than $700 million into his private foundation, which supports the arts, higher education, and integrative medicine in the San Francisco Bay area and his native Maine. Approaching his eighties, he runs a scholarship program for people over 50.


10. Alfred Mann, Medical devices
• The founder of 11 biomedical companies, Mann plans to parlay his wealth into at least as many top biomedical research institutes, the first of which opened at the University of Southern California with an endowment of more than $100 million. An October agreement with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology plants the seeds for the first of these overseas.

Source: The 50 Most Generous Philanthropists

John D. Rockefeller - American Industrialist and Philanthropist

John Davison Rockefeller, Sr. (July 8, 1839 –May 23, 1937) was an American industrialist and philanthropist. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy. In 1870, Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company and ran it until he retired in the late 1890s. Standard Oil began as an Ohio partnership formed by John D. Rockefeller, his brother William Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, chemist Samuel Andrews, and a silent partner Stephen V. Harkness. Rockefeller kept his stock and as gasoline grew in importance, his wealth soared and he became the world's richest man and first U.S. dollar billionaire, and is often regarded as the richest person in history. Standard Oil was convicted in Federal Court of monopolistic practices and broken up in 1911. Rockefeller spent the last 40 years of his life in retirement. His fortune was mainly used to create the modern systematic approach of targeted philanthropy with foundations that had a major effect on medicine, education, and scientific research. His foundations pioneered the development of medical research, and were instrumental in the eradication of hookworm and yellow fever. He is also the founder of both University of Chicago and Rockefeller University . He was a devoted Northern Baptist and supported many church-based institutions throughout his life. Rockefeller adhered to total abstinence from alcohol and tobacco throughout his life.

He married Laura Celestia ("Cettie") Spelman in 1864 and outlived her. The Rockefellers had four daughters and one son; John D. Rockefeller, Jr. "Junior" was largely entrusted with the supervision of the foundations.

Source: Wikipedia.com

Here are the Success Traits:

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER Biography
Organize, Create Systems and Order, and Hire the Right People:
[From the start Rockefeller showed a genius for organization and method. The firm prospered during the Civil War (1861–65), when Confederate (Southern) forces clashed with those of the Union (North). With the Pennsylvania oil strike (1859) and the building of a railroad to Cleveland, they branched out into oil refining (purifying) with Samuel Andrews, who had technical knowledge of the field. Within two years Rockefeller became senior partner; Clark was bought out, and the firm Rockefeller and Andrews became Cleveland's largest refinery.]

Work Hard with Focus at Something You Are Passionate About:
[Rockefeller's personal life was fairly simple. He was a man of few passions who lived for his work, and his great talent was his organizing genius and drive for order, pursued with great single-mindedness and concentration. His life was absorbed by business and family (wife Laura and four children), and later by organized giving. He created order, efficiency, and planning with extraordinary success and sweeping vision.]

Put Your Soul Into It
Be Energetic, Ambitious, and Generous:
[ Self-made billionaire, John Davison Rockefeller (1839-1937) approached life with energy and ambition. Born in Richford, New York, he was raised to work hard, save, and be generous.

Called the world's greatest philanthropist, in his lifetime he gave away over $530,000,000.

"I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty," said the successful entrepreneurs.

Like his contemporary Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller started with little. In 1859, with $1,000 saved and another $1,000 borrowed from his father, Rockefeller formed a merchant partnership with neighbor Maurice Clark.]

Learn from Your Mistakes:
In 1863, the duo added partner, Samuel Andrews and turned to oil production. "I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity," Rockefeller explained.

Two years later, Rockefeller bought the refinery business outright for $72,500 and expanded. He formed Standard Oil in 1870, which at its peak controlled 90% of the U.S. oil industry and according to Rockefeller, "revolutionized the way of doing business all over the world."]

Take the Path Less Traveled:
["If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success," said the successful capitalist icon.]

Warren Buffet - American Investor and Philanthropist

Warren Edward Buffett (born August 30, 1930, in Omaha, Nebraska) is an American investor, businessman and philanthropist. He is regarded as one of the world's greatest stock market investors, and is the largest shareholder and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. With an estimated net worth of around US$62 billion, he was ranked by Forbes as the richest person in the world as of March 5, 2008.

Often called the "Oracle of Omaha," Buffett is noted for his adherence to the value investing philosophy and for his personal frugality despite his immense wealth. His 2006 annual salary was about $100,000, which is on the low side of senior executive remuneration in other comparable companies. He lives in the same house in the central Dundee neighborhood of Omaha that he bought in 1958 for $31,500, today valued at around $700,000.

Buffett is also a noted philanthropist. In 2006, he announced a plan to give away his fortune to charity, with 83% of it going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2007, Buffett was listed among Time's 100 Most Influential People in The World. He also serves as a member of the board of trustees at Grinnell College.

Source: Wikipedia

Here are the Success Traits:

Warren Buffett Biography
Even Harvard Makes Mistakes:
[In 1947, a seventeen year old Warren Buffett graduated from High School. It was never his intention to go to college; he had already made $5,000 delivering newspapers (this is equal to $42,610.81 in 2000). His father had other plans, and urged his son to attend the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. Buffett stayed two years, complaining that he knew more than his professors. When Howard was defeated in the 1948 Congressional race, Warren returned home to Omaha and transferred to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Working full-time, he managed to graduate in only three years.

Warren Buffett approached graduate studies with the same resistance he displayed a few years earlier. He was finally persuaded to apply to Harvard Business School, which, in the worst admission decision in history, rejected him as "too young". Slighted, Warren applied to Columbia where famed investors Ben Graham and David Dodd taught - an experience that would forever change his life.]

Persistence:
[Ben Graham became an idyllic figure to the twenty-one year old Warren Buffett. Reading an old edition of Who's Who, Warren discovered his mentor was the Chairman of a small, unknown insurance company named GEICO. He hopped a train to Washington D.C. one Saturday morning to find the headquarters. When he got there, the doors were locked. Not to be stopped, Buffett relentlessly pounded on the door until a janitor came to open it for him. He asked if there was anyone in the building. As luck (or fate) would have it, there was. It turns out that there was a man still working on the sixth floor. Warren was escorted up to meet him and immediately began asking him questions about the company and its business practices; a conversation that stretched on for four hours. The man was none other than Lorimer Davidson, the Financial Vice President. The experience would be something that stayed with Buffett for the rest of his life. He eventually acquired the entire GEICO company through his corporation, Berkshire Hathaway.]

Even the Best Fail Sometimes:
[During these initial years, Warren's investments were predominately limited to a Texaco station and some real estate, but neither were successful. It was also during this time he began teaching night classes at the University of Omaha (something that wouldn't have been possible several months before. In an effort to conquer his intense fear of public speaking, Warren took a course by Dale Carnegie). Thankfully, things changed. Ben Graham called one day, inviting the young stockbroker to come to work for him. Warren was finally given the opportunity he had long awaited.]

More Hard Times:
[It was shortly thereafter one of the most profound and upsetting events in Buffett's life took place. At forty-five, Susan Buffett left her husband - in form. Although she remained married to Warren, the humanitarian / singer secured an apartment in San Francisco and, insisting she wanted to live on her own, moved there. Warren was absolutely devastated; throughout his life, Susie had been "the sunshine and rain in my [his] garden". The two remained close, speaking every day, taking their annual two-week New York trip, and meeting the kids at their California Beach house for Christmas get-togethers. The transition was hard for the businessman, but he eventually grew somewhat accustomed to the new arrangement. Susie called several women in the Omaha area and insisted they go to dinner and a movie with her husband; eventually, she set Warren up with Astrid Menks, a waitress.]

A Chronological History of the Oracle of Omaha: 1930-1956
Confidence:
[1943: Warren declares to a friend of the family that he will be a millionaire by the time he turns thirty, or "[I'll] jump off the tallest building in Omaha."]

Strengthen Your Weaknesses:
[1951: Buffett takes a Dale Carnegie public speaking course. Using what he learnt, he began to teach a night class at the University of Nebraska, "Investment Principles". The students were twice his age [he was only 21 at the time].]