The biggest names missing from the list of America's top philanthropists

America's top 50 philanthropists gave a whopping $22.4 billion to charity in 2025, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy's latest annual ranking . Media titan Michael Bloomberg led the Philanthropy 50 for the third year in a row, donating $4.3 billion to support the arts, public health and other causes. Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott is notably absent from the ranking. Scott announced on her blog in early December that she had given away nearly $7.2 billion to about 225 organizations over the past 12 months. She has donated more than $26 billion to nonprofits since 2020, according to a website for her philanthropic organization, Yield Giving. Maria Di Mento, senior editor at the Chronicle, told Inside Wealth that Scott was excluded because her representatives declined to confirm how much she had contributed to her donor-advised funds , which are popular financial vehicles for charitable giving. The Philanthropy 50 counts donations to donor-advised funds, or DAFs, and foundations, but it doesn't include disbursements from those funds in order to avoid double counting, Di Mento said. While Scott publicizes her giving, ultra-wealthy philanthropists have become increasingly secretive about their charitable giving, according to Di Mento, who has worked on the rankings for 21 years. "I do think the desire for privacy has grown in recent years because the ultra wealthy are under so much more scrutiny than they used to be," she said. "While I think there has always been some resentment towards the ultra rich, that resentment, particularly very recently, has grown by leaps and bounds." She added that philanthropists regularly tell her that they are wary of being hounded by nonprofits eager for funding. "Donors tell me this all the time: When they attach their name to a gift, they will get bombarded by major gift fundraisers from other organizations," she said. "That's a very real concern. Some of these people, believe it or not, do not have a lot of staff." ...