Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave $311.3 million to charity last year. If that sounds like a lot, it’s because it is: Not only was it about $32 million more than he’d given the previous year, but he gave the fifth most of anyone in the country, reports the Post. The amount by which Bloomberg increased his philanthropy nearly lines up with the $30 million he pledged last summer for his pet project, a new city program meant to “improve the circumstances” of young minority men.
Bloomberg’s contributions to that program were matched by George Soros, the New York billionaire who just so happens to occupy the spot just above his on the charitable rankings, with $335 million doled out. There was just one living person ahead of the pair on the list, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. (Bill Gates didn’t make the list because his largesse had been pledged in an earlier calendar year; ditto Warren Buffett.) The top two spots were filled by the estate of Margaret A. Cargill, which gave $6 billion, and the estate of William S. Dietrich, which gave $500 million. Sometimes the dead remember the living, and not the other way around!
