Page 10 - Forbes Magazine-October 31, 2018

FORBES THE LIST

Measuring Generosity: Our New Philanthropy Score
For the first time, Forbes 400 members are ranked not just on their were in their charitable giving and how quickly their private foundations
total wealth and on how self-made they are but also on their generosity. distributed dollars. We also used some lifetime-giving information from
Members of this elite club have been scored on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 Boca Raton-based firm SHOOK Research. We don’t count pledges or
being the most philanthropic. announced gifts that have yet to be paid out. Some billionaires worked
To come up with the scores, we first estimated each list member’s with Forbes; others refused to cooperate, citing privacy concerns and/or
total lifetime giving. A team of 32 Forbes journalists delved into public religious beliefs. List members about whom we could find no charitable
filings, from tax forms for private foundations to press releases, and giving information received an N.A. (not available). Some of our lifetime-
reached out to 400 members and nonprofits as well. Next we looked at giving estimates may be low because of a lack of transparency.
what percent of their fortune they had given away. We weighted these The spirit of the project harks back to an anecdote top philanthro-
two factors equally and scored people accordingly. Some individuals pist Bill Gates shared at The Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy in
were then bumped up or down based on several other factors, including 2014. “One of the [Middle Eastern magnates] mentioned that in the
whether they had signed the Giving Pledge, how personally involved they Qur’an, it actually says the reason to talk about your philanthropy is
[that] it encourages other
FORBES 400 LIFETIME GIVING RANGES LISTEES BY SCORE
people to do the same,”
SCORE: 5
N/A: 46 88 91 89 50 36 he said. “In that case, you
88
29 N/A
SCORE: 1 SCORE: 2 SCORE: 3 SCORE: 4 SCORE: 5 SCORE: 4 46 have an obligation to talk
LESS THAN $30 MIL $30 MIL-$99 MIL $100 MIL-$299 MIL $300 MIL-$999 MIL $1 BIL+
55 about your philanthropy.”
SCORE: 1
FORBES 400 % GIVING RANGES 77 We agree, and hope
SCORE: 3 to start a conversation
N/A: 46 106 151 51 29 17 96
SCORE: 2 about the nation’s richest
SCORE: 1 SCORE: 2 SCORE: 3 SCORE: 4 SCORE: 5 97
LESS THAN 1% 1%-4.99% 5%-9.99% 10%-19.99% 20%+ and their commitment to
N.A.: NO INFORMATION AVAILABLE ABOUT A LIST MEMBER’S CHARITABLE GIVING. the public good.
11. JIM WALTON 14. STEVE BALLMER sial former NFL quarterback Colin man of Nike in June 2016, has com-
Kaepernick that drew critics and fans
mitted more than $500 million to
$45.2 BILLION S SELF-MADE SCORE: @ $42.3 BILLION S SELF-MADE SCORE: ^ alike. The stock initially dropped but Stanford University, including $400
SOURCE: WALMART SOURCE: MICROSOFT recovered and rose to an all-time high. million in 2016 for the Knight-Hen-
AGE: 70 RESIDENCE: BENTONVILLE, AR AGE: 62 RESIDENCE: HUNTS POINT, WA
Knight, who stepped down as chair- nessy graduate student scholarships.
PHILANTHROPY SCORE: PHILANTHROPY SCORE:
Since retiring as CEO of Microsoft in
12. ALICE WALTON 2014, Ballmer has ramped up his phi-
lanthropy, writing checks to his and
$44.9 BILLION S SELF-MADE SCORE: ! his wife’s alma maters (Harvard and
SOURCE: WALMART
AGE: 69 RESIDENCE: FORT WORTH, TX University of Oregon, respectively)
and putting $1.9 billion into a donor-
PHILANTHROPY SCORE:
advised fund at Goldman Sachs. He
has also put together a website called
12. S. ROBSON WALTON USAFacts.org for people to look up
and understand where the govern-
$44.9 BILLION S SELF-MADE SCORE: $
SOURCE: WALMART ment is spending money. Ballmer,
AGE: 74 RESIDENCE: BENTONVILLE, AR who met Bill Gates (No. 2) while they
were classmates at Harvard and be-
PHILANTHROPY SCORE: N.A.
came Microsoft’s 30th employee,
In January, following the passage of owes most of his fortune to the soft-
the Congressional tax reform bill, ware company. He owns the NBA’s
Walmart announced that it would in- L.A. Clippers, which he bought for $2
crease its minimum wage to $11 an billion in 2014.
hour and issue one-time cash bonus-
es of up to $1,000 to eligible employ- 15. SHELDON ADELSON
ees. On the same day, it announced 16. PHIL KNIGHT
the closing of 63 Sam’s Club outlets. & FAMILY $35.5 BILLION S SELF-MADE SCORE: )
The retailer’s U.S. e-commerce sales SOURCE: CASINOS
AGE: 85 RESIDENCE: LAS VEGAS
jumped by 40% in the latest quar- $33.8 BILLION S SELF-MADE SCORE: *
ter, while the stock rose 20% in the SOURCE: NIKE PHILANTHROPY SCORE:
AGE: 80 RESIDENCE: HILLSBORO, OR
past year. Alice and Rob sit on the The Republican megadonor and his wife, Miriam, are gearing up for the
board of the Walton Family Founda- PHILANTHROPY SCORE: midterm elections, kicking in $55 million to help their party keep con-
tion, which disbursed $536 million in In August, former female employ- trol of Congress in November. Outside of his political contributions, Adel-
2017, mainly to educational and en- ees filed a class action lawsuit against son has donated more than $1.1 billion to charity in his lifetime, mostly to
vironmental causes, and to projects Nike, alleging gender discrimina- Jewish organizations. In April he announced another $70 million donation
in the Ozarks. The foundation was set tion at the apparel giant cofounded to Birthright Israel Foundation, which funds trips to Israel for young Jew-
up by their parents, Walmart’s found- by Knight in 1964. Nike said it doesn’t ish people, bringing his total giving to the group to $410 million. Adelson,
er Sam Walton and his wife, Hel- comment on pending litigation but who is CEO and majority owner of Las Vegas Sands, one of the largest ca-
en, on the retailer’s 25th anniversa- opposes discrimination of any type. sino companies in the country, made his first foray into gambling at age 55
ry in 1987. In September the sportswear giant re- when he bought the Sands Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
leased a new ad featuring controver- TYRONE SIU/REUTERS
132 | FORBES OCTOBER 31, 2018 WEALTH INHERITED VS. SELF-MADE CHANGE IN WEALTH KEY: S UP T DOWN SIGNATORY OF THE PHILANTHROPY RATING
! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) WX UNCHANGED Ì NEW TO LIST 3 RETURNEE GIVING PLEDGE