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Oprah Winfrey has been proclaimed the world's biggest giver -- again. For the seoncd year running, the day-time host topped a list of the 30 most generous celebrities for giving $50.2 million US last year through the Oprah Winfrey Foundation and Oprah's Angel Network, which fund education, health care and advocacy for women and children. The list, now in its second year, was compiled by The Giving Back Fund, a charity that aims to encourage philanthropy. Claiming the No. 2 spot was trumpeter Herb Alpert, who gave $13 million for education, including music lessons, through the Herb Alpert Foundation. Three...

Peter Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, has a new book out that is sure to drive the loony left, well, even loonier. In the new book Makers and Takers, Schweizer tells us "why conservatives work harder, feel happier, have closer families, take fewer drugs, give more generously, value honesty more, are less materialistic" than lefties in America. This from his website: Seventy-one percent of conservatives say you have an obligation to care for a seriously injured spouse or parent versus less than half (46 percent) of liberals. Conservatives have a better work ethic and are much less...

Sir John Templeton agreed with the proverb that it's "easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." "There's a lot of truth in that," the billionaire philanthropist once said. "When people trust in something other than God, it's difficult to be truly spiritual. ... Don't fall in love with money." Sir John, a pioneering mutual fund manager, global investor and founder of the Templeton Prize, died Tuesday of pneumonia in the Bahamas, a spokeswoman at his foundation said. He was 95. Sir John was born...

Billionaire, former mutual fund manager, Sir John M. Templeton has died. Templeton ran some of the most successful mutual funds during the initial boom years for mutual funds. In 1939, when World War II began in Europe and the stock market was at record lows, Templeton borrowed $10,000 and bought 100 shares each in 104 companies that were selling at $1 a share or less, including 34 in bankruptcy. A few years later, he made large profits on 100 of the companies; four turned out to be worthless. Templeton renounced his American citizenship in the 1960's and moved to the...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's love for children is by no means limited to their own: The couple has donated $1 million to help kids affected by the war in Iraq, the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict announced Wednesday. The organization will distribute the donation, made through the couple's Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to four organizations working on behalf of children who have lost parents, homes and schools in Iraq. Children in the U.S. who have lost parents in the conflict will also benefit. "These educational support programs for children of conflict are the best way to...

Americans are hearing so much these days about how bad we are that we're starting to believe it. In a recent Gallup Poll, 68 percent said they are "dissatisfied with the position of the United States in the world today," and 55 percent said they think that the rest of the world views us unfavorably. However, as I page through a publication called the Index of Global Philanthropy, which is produced annually by the Center for Global Prosperity at the Hudson Institute in Washington, it becomes obvious that these American feelings of self-deprecation are misguided. This is the just released...

WASHINGTON, May 29, 2008 – After stringent review by one of the country’s premier charity watchdogs, a Massachusetts-based troop-support group has been added to a list of top-rated charities. The American Institute of Philanthropy has reviewed Homes for Our Troops’ finances and included the group in their “Top-Rated Veterans & Military Charities” listing. Homes for Our Troops is a supporter of America Supports You, a Defense Department program connecting citizens and companies with servicemembers and their families serving at home and abroad. “Homes for Our Troops is proud to be included in [American Institute of Philanthropy’s] list of top...

Chris Jardine gingerly reached out with his fingerless hands to touch the new wheelchair he was just given. He lifted his body into the new chair, but after a moment he pulled himself out and went back into his old wheelchair. “I want to wait and get up Christmas morning and have this be my Christmas gift,” Jardine said in his 10-by-10 room located in an old hospital in Mahaica, Guyana. Jardine was in dire need of a new wheelchair. His old one had loose and broken wheels, making transportation especially dangerous and difficult. The new chair would be more...

Many Americans were startled to learn that the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, whose campaign is built on an uplifting message of national unity and racial reconciliation, belongs to a church in Chicago where a very different view of America is preached by its longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Mr. Wright, who just retired after decades in the pulpit, has argued that the "United States of White America" is still sharply divided between an oppressive white power structure and oppressed African-Americans, that God should "damn America for treating our citizens as less than human," and that the 2001 terrorist...

BOSTON (Reuters) - Philanthropist David Rockefeller donated a record $100 million to Harvard University's undergraduate program, the largest gift by a Harvard alumnus in the history of the oldest and richest U.S. college. About $70 million will be used to expand Harvard's student travel and study abroad programs and $30 million will go to arts education, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, school said in a statement on Friday. Rockefeller, 92, the last surviving grandchild of billionaire oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, is listed by Forbes magazine as one of the 150 wealthiest Americans, with an estimated fortune of $2.7 billion. He graduated...

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign released their tax forms from 2000-2007 Thursday, which showed the Clintons earned more than $100 million in that time period and donated $10 million of that to their own charity. The Clinton campaign reports donating $10,256,741 to the CFF between 2000 and 2006. During that time, CFF dispersed $2,530,100 in money to other charities and causes. The names of other persons who donated to the CFF are not required to be disclosed. Over the years, the CFF gave $80,000 to the Clinton Birthplace Foundation Inc., $20,000 to the Shakespeare Theatre, $40,000 to the School of the...

Here is a very long word that may be new to you (I Googled it and, at the time of writing, it has only 2,710 hits): philanthrocapitalism. If you wish to be very hip and savvy, you can call it Philanthropy 3.0. At bottom - though, as we shall see, there is more to it - this is about very rich people, such as Bill Gates, Jeff Skoll (the creator of eBay), Bono, George Soros and the founders of Google, giving away lots of money. What's wrong with that? It shows they have a heart, doesn't it? But I have...

Charity, do-gooding, philanthropy it’s all just selfishness masquerading as virtue. So says the cynic. In modern times, the theory that each of us, despite occasional appearances of self-sacrificial nobility, is ultimately and invariably looking out for No. 1 got a big boost from Darwin’s theory of evolution. By the logic of natural selection, any tendency to act selflessly ought to be snuffed out in the struggle to survive and propagate. So if someone seems to be behaving as an altruist — say, by giving away a fortune to relieve the sufferings of others — that person is really following the...

The family of Utah inventor and billionaire philanthropist James LeVoy Sorenson said today that he willed his entire personal fortune to charity. Sorenson died of cancer last month at age 86. Last year, Forbes Magazine estimated his wealth to be approximately $4.5 billion. Sorenson was known for his numerous medical inventions and successful business endeavors, in addition to his dedication to charitable causes. His son, James Lee Sorenson, said his father had talked about leaving his vast fortune behind to help various worthy causes. "Over time, particularly the last 10 to 20 years having been successful, he asked himself, 'What...

ERIE, Pa. - Mike Batchelor invited the heads of 46 charities into his downtown office for one-on-one meetings to personally deliver the news. Nearby, on a small table, sat a box of tissues. And then he proceeded: A donor had given a staggering $100 million to the Erie Community Foundation, and all of the charities would receive a share. That was when the tears began to flow — and the mystery began — in this struggling old industrial city of 102,000 on Lake Erie, where the donor is known only as "Anonymous Friend." Batchelor, president of the Erie Community Foundation,...

Microsoft Corp. marked the end of its annual giving campaign by hosting former President Bill Clinton for a campus visit. Clinton, joining Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to reveal the results of this year’s campaign, told a standing-room-only audience of more than 1,000 employees and thousands more watching via webcast that every individual, regardless of status or income, can help solve global challenges such as climate change and poverty.

Google is a public company that operates the amazingly successful online search engine. Its founders have decided to create a philanthropic arm for the company called Google.org. Their aim is to change the world by fighting poverty, reversing global warming, and landing a robot on the moon. But if the company ever runs into financial trouble, will its shareholders still appreciate the founders’ grandiose projects?...... Google Inc.’s billionaire founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have decided to use their shareholders’ money to fund their adventures in philanthropy...... ...Page and Brin have outlined a sweeping, almost utopian vision for Google.org. In...

NEW YORK (AP) - Former President Clinton will appear on Oprah Winfrey's TV talk show next Tuesday, Sept. 4, his first interview to promote "Giving," a book on philanthropy and civic action coming out the same day. Clinton's appearance was announced Monday in an e-mail - "The first interview about his new passion!" - sent to members of Winfrey's book club. Winfrey, who interviewed Clinton in 2004 for his memoir "My Life," has good reason to think highly of the new book. "Giving" praises Winfrey's "Angel Network," which has donated millions of dollars around the world, from money for schools...

As Chicago companies broaden their market horizons, they also are broadening the meaning of charity Digging deep: To help Beijing prepare for the 2008 Olympics, Caterpillar donated a hydraulic excavator, like this one, to the Chinese government. It's a big world, and as Chicago's largest businesses go global, their charitable giving is following them. Tapping new markets like China, India and Eastern Europe, many firms are expanding their community involvement to include all the places where they do business. Simply put, giving makes for good business. It's part of a larger trend in corporate philanthropy. The share of U.S. corporate...

"The rich are different from you and me," wrote Fitzgerald and I suppose they are, but the differences – they wax and wane with the economic tides. Gilded ages come, go, and are reborn on the monsoon cloudbursts of seemingly intangible forces such as globalization, innovation, and favorable tax policy. For the rich to be truly rich and multiply their numbers, they need help. Adept surfers they may be, but like all riders, the wealthy need a seventh wave that allows them to preen their skills and declare themselves masters of their own universe, if only for a moment in...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Investor Warren Buffett may hold the title as America's top donor, but his well-heeled competitors helped make 2006 a record year for charitable giving, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reported on Friday. ADVERTISEMENT A record 21 Americans each gave at least $100 million to charitable causes last year, in what amounted to a banner year for universities, medical centers, arts groups and other organizations that depend on charitable giving, the publication reported. Buffett's $36.1 billion check to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation dwarfed other donations as the Berkshire Hathaway CEO began to give away his sizable fortune....

It has been years since Conrad Dobler terrorized pro football, but his plan for last Sunday was like that of most Americans: He would be a hostage to Super Bowl XLI, although with somewhat divided loyalties. During a career when he was billed as "the dirtiest player in the NFL," Dobler once toiled with the New Orleans Saints, whose quarterback was Archie Manning. "A great guy, and of course, his son Peyton is the man with the Indianapolis Colts," Dobler said last week. "So it's hard not to pull for Peyton. Then again, I was born in Chicago. I don't...

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Around here, T. Denny Sanford is not known just for the billions he made in banking — he's also known for the millions he has donated. When officials at Sioux Valley Hospitals & Health Systems told him of their dream to transform the facility into a major research institution for children's health, he donated $400 million, and they promised to rename the institution after him — Sanford Health. "I have been quoted as wanting to die broke," Sanford , 71, said at Saturday's announcement before 1,800 employees and community leaders. Hospital president and CEO Kelby Krabbenhoft...

REVIEW OF: Who Really Cares: America’s Charity Divide—Who Gives, Who Doesn’t, and Why It Matters by Arthur C. Brooks (Basic Books, 250 pp., $26.00) It’s tempting to say that Arthur Brooks, in his definitive new book on American charitable giving, has shown that there is nothing oxymoronic about the term “compassionate conservative.” That, at least, is the conclusion that critics have drawn from Brooks’s demonstration that conservatives, despite the myth that they lack compassion, give significantly more to charity than liberals do. But in fact Brooks has shown something even more significant: that “compassionate conservative” is not only overly defensive,...

Charitable Nation America, the generous. By Jonah Goldberg Americans are better people than Europeans. Hold on, it gets better. Religious Americans are better than non-religious Americans. And religious Americans tend to be politically conservative. This admittedly tendentious rendering of reality is how some on the right are interpreting Who Really Cares? by Arthur Brooks, a professor of public administration at Syracuse University. Brooks doesn’t really deal with what makes one person “better” or “worse” than any other. But it’s fair to say that how much a person gives — of either his money or time — is usually considered an...

Republicans give a bigger share of their incomes to charity, says a prominent economistIt's been a tough month for conservatives, with the Republican Party losing control of both houses of Congress, but a new book being released this week may help brighten their spirits.  In Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism (Basic Books), Arthur C. Brooks finds that religious conservatives are far more charitable than secular liberals, and that those who support the idea that government should redistribute income are among the least likely to dig into their own wallets to help others.  Some of his findings...

ALEXANDRIA, La. (BP)--A couple of years ago I was being interviewed by a newspaper reporter on the subject of “gay marriage.” Somewhere in the midst of our conversation the discussion turned and the reporter said, “You have to admit that there are places in the Bible where Jesus comes across more like a tax and spend liberal who really wants to help the poor rather than a conservative who wants the disadvantaged to help themselves.” “I don’t know any conservatives that are opposed to helping the poor,” I replied. “We just disagree with liberals on what is the best way...

One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring. It is liberals who advocate "forgiveness" of loans to Third World countries, a "living wage" for the poor and a "safety net" for all. But these are all government policies -- not individual acts of compassion -- and the actual empirical consequences of such policies are of remarkably little interest to those who advocate them. ...snip... A new book, titled "Who Really Cares" by Arthur C. Brooks examines the actual behavior of liberals and conservatives when it comes...

  Philanthropy Expert Says Conservatives Are More Generous BY FRANK BRIEADDY SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks is about to become the darling of the religious right wing in America -- and it's making him nervous. The child of academics, raised in a liberal household and educated in the liberal arts, Brooks has written a book that concludes religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of charitable activities, irrespective of income. In the book, to be released later this month, he cites extensive data analysis to demonstrate that values advocated by...

Big business primarily supports right-wing advocacy groups, right? Think again. A recent report from the Capital Research Center shows Fortune 100 corporate foundations give overwhelmingly to liberal groups. In fact, in the sample year studied (2001), these corporate foundations gave 14 times more money to liberal causes than business-friendly ones. Even more surprising, environmental causes got the most funding, approximately 75 percent of the $60 million from 53 corporate foundations.

Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks is about to become the darling of the religious right wing in America — and it’s making him nervous. The child of academics, raised in a liberal household and educated in the liberal arts, Brooks has written a book that concludes religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of charitable activities, irrespective of income. In the book, to be released next month, he cites extensive data analysis to demonstrate that values advocated by conservatives — from church attendance to two-parent families to the Protestant work ethic and a distaste...

Liberal blogger David R. Mark recently wrote, “Those that call themselves ‘compassionate conservatives’ would never think to touch their fat-cat supporters. It’s much easier to spin the ‘economic benefits’ of helping huge corporations fatten their bottom lines.� Liberal academic Thomas Frank, in his book What’s The Matter With Kansas?, claims that the corporate world “wields the Republican Party as its personal political sidearm.� Both Mark and Frank express a common view that corporations are major funders of the political right, and that when corporations make contributions to nonprofit advocacy groups they give to groups on the right because those groups...

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has given 105 million dollars to Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, the largest gift ever bestowed upon a business school, according to the academic institution. "The majority of the gift -- 100 million dollars -- will be used to construct a new 275-million-dollar campus for the business school, to be named the Knight Management Center," the university said in a statement posted on its website Tuesday. "It is believed to be the largest gift ever given to a business school," according to the university, founded in 1891 near San...

The John Templeton Foundation, a $1.1 billion philanthropy devoted to bringing science and religion together, is launching an ambitious international effort to fund physics research with potential theological implications. Based in Cambridge and led by an MIT physics professor, the new Foundational Questions Institute is scheduled to announce its first round of grants today -- a total of $2.2 million to 30 physicists at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and other top institutions. The institute will not tackle explicitly religious questions like ``Does God exist?" but will instead focus on deep questions in physics that may be too speculative or philosophical for...

The mosquito nets arrived too late for 18-month-old Phillip Odong. The roly-poly boy came down with his fourth bout of malaria on March 16, the same day the nets were handed out at the makeshift camp where he lived in northern Uganda. "It was because of poverty that we could not afford one," his mother, Jackeline Ato, recalled recently, seated in rags beneath a mango tree. The morning after his fever spiked, she took him to a clinic, but it did not have the medicines that might have saved him. He died four days later, crying, "Mommy, Mommy," before losing...

No sooner had Warren Buffett made the single largest philanthropic donation in history than he was talking up the death tax. After signing over $30.7 billion to the Gates Foundation - and thus depriving the government of upward of $17 billion, depending on when he ultimately expires - Buffett told reporters, "I would hate to see the estate tax gutted. It's a very equitable tax." It's understandable that Buffett believes the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will do a better job spending his fortune than the U.S. Congress. For the impoverished, disease-stricken of Africa, the Gates Foundation is a far...

Warren Buffett Gives until it Hurts: Hurts Women, Hurts the Developing World and Kills Preborn Children “Warren Buffett’s philanthropy aims at killing pre-born children not curing childhood disease, eliminating the poor not poverty, destroying the developing world not aiding in development,” states prominent Roman Catholic Priest. (Front Royal, VA) The Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, President of Human Life International responds to Warren Buffett’s announcement to donate billions of dollars to the pro-abortion Gates Foundation. “Warren Buffett’s money has gone to fund the deadly abortion causing drug RU- 486, the production and distribution of portable suction abortion devices in the developing...

In 2001, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched an ambitious program to remake high school education, and help more kids go to college, in their home state of Washington. After pouring $134 million into the effort, the foundation has achieved results but also learned hard lessons. Twelve test-bed high schools have redesigned themselves into "small learning communities." About 2,500 low-income students are in college on foundation-provided scholarships. But as so many education reformers before them have found, efforts to remake the US education system generated a measure of controversy that the Gateses and their foundation weren't prepared for. "We...

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is to donate about $37bn (£20bn) - most of his vast personal fortune - to Bill Gates' charitable foundation. Mr Buffett will hand 10 million shares in his Berkshire Hathaway firm to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a statement, Mr and Mrs Gates said they were "awed" by the donation, thought to be the largest charitable gift ever made in the United States.

Excerpt - SEATTLE - Warren Buffett, the world's second richest man, is starting this year to give much of his wealth to charity, with the bulk of over $40 million in Berkshire Hathaway stock going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a letter dated Monday, Buffett, who is chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., tells Bill and Melinda Gates that the first annual donation would go to the foundation this year. It's expected to total about $1.5 billion. Up until now, all the money given away by the Gates Foundation has come from Bill and Melinda Gates. The money...

NEW YORK (FORTUNE Magazine) - We were sitting in a Manhattan living room on a spring afternoon, and Warren Buffett had a Cherry Coke in his hand as usual. But this unremarkable scene was about to take a surprising turn. "Brace yourself," Buffett warned with a grin. He then described a momentous change in his thinking. Within months, he said, he would begin to give away his Berkshire Hathaway fortune, then and now worth well over $40 billion. This news was indeed stunning. Buffett, 75, has for decades said his wealth would go to philanthropy but has just as steadily...

FORT WORTH Perry R. Bass, patriarch of Fort Worth's well-known Bass family, died at his Westover Hills home Thursday morning. Bass and his four sons have been the city's best-known philanthropists and businessmen for years. The family was instrumental in turning downtown Fort Worth into a vibrant urban area. Bass made many of his donations through the family's Sid Richardson Foundation. Bass gave millions of dollars to education, conservation, and other causes. Fort Worth's Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Performance Hall is named for Bass and his widow. The concert hall hosts dozens of performances each year. The Van...

The Associated Press SNOW HILL, N.C. Former vice presidential candidate John Edwards honored a promise Friday he made at the beginning of the school year, handing out $300,000 in scholarships to pay for the first year of college for more than 100 students at a rural high school in eastern North Carolina. Administrators at Greene Central High School say his pledge helped nearly double the number of college-bound seniors. "We chose this county and this school because we saw the potential," Edwards told students at a crowded awards ceremony Friday. The "College for Everyone" program covers the college bills of...

When the U.N.'s Jan Egeland called the U.S. "stingy" with foreign aid a couple of years back, he was playing to a stereotype promoted by those who want governments to redistribute global incomes. He was also wrong, and now we have the data to prove it. The Hudson Institute recently released the 2006 Index of Global Philanthropy, the first comprehensive report on international aid by private institutions and individuals in the U.S. The index shows that millions of Americans give to the world's poor at a rate that is anything but "stingy." Voluntary giving by Americans dwarfs government aid the...

Billionaire financier George Soros, who has helped trigger financial turmoil and political upheaval overseas, is coming to Pittsburgh this weekend to discuss the impact of his Open Society Institute. Soros will address the 57th annual Council on Foundations conference, which opens Sunday. The council is a trade association for more than 2,000 philanthropic programs worldwide. According to an event program, Soros is scheduled to speak on "the innovative ways that the Open Society Institute is changing lives across the globe." Soros "will share how creative grantmaking and partnerships can effect change that is far-reaching and sustaining," the program states. According...

Let Vice President Cheney unload a hail of buckshot - and it makes mainstream media headlines as a defining moment is his failed vice presidency. Let him file his federal tax return and it is reported by CBS News that "Cheney tops Bush in the battle of the bucks." Let him donate what was the largest amount of bucks in history to charity by any public servant, and you guessed it - nary a headline. But then again it was a paltry $6.87 million, more than three-quarters of the reported income of the Cheneys. Read this again: The Cheneys gave...

In one of the largest sums ever donated to charity by a U.S. public official, Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne gave away nearly $7 million last year to help the poor and to medical research. According to income tax information released by the White House on Friday, the Cheneys' adjusted gross income in 2005 was $8,819,006. The sum was largely the result of Mr. Cheney's stock options from Halliburton and royalties from three books written by Mrs. Cheney. The Cheneys gave more than three-quarters of their income - $6,869,655 - to several charities, including George Washington University's...

Matt forgot to mention that the Cheney's gave $6.87 million to charity, and he forgot to mention that the only reason the Cheney's are getting a tax refund is that they way overpaid their withholding and/or estimated taxes. It appears that Matt is now a charter member of the Drive-By-Media.

Bill Gates was recently named one of Time's people of the year for the incredible amounts of money he has given to fight poverty and disease around the world. But just because Bill cares about poor people doesn't mean that he wants to see them use Linux. Gates demonstrated the new Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum this week, and later began trash talking the US$100 PC currently under development at MIT. It's hard to see how a philanthropist could not love a device designed to put basic computing power in the hands of every child on...

<p>Vice President Dick Cheney is giving back to the hospital that saved his life.</p> <p>The GW Medical Faculty Associates and School of Medicine and Health Sciences announced yesterday the establishment of the Richard B. and Lynne V. Cheney Cardiovascular Institute, which will be funded by a $2.7 million gift from the vice president and his wife.</p>