Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Nifty 50: Top Philanthropists Giving Even More

While overall giving may be growing only slightly, the largest donors in the United States are increasing their gifts by tremendous amounts, according to BusinessWeek’s third annual rankings of the Top 50 U.S. Philanthropists.

For instance, Bill and Melinda Gates donated their entire stock dividend worth $3 billion! That's more than the entire Walton family of Wal-Mart fame have given in their entire lifetimes. The other big gift was from the estate of Susie Buffet (Warren Buffet, Berkshire Hathaway's wife) of $2.5 billion.

For the rundown, go to the article - The Top Givers (registration required).

We're In the Money: Millionaires Growing at Record Rate

The number of households with more than one million dollars in net worth (excluding primary residence) has risen to a record high as well as at a record rate, according to new research released today by TNS Financial Services. According to the latest Affluent Market Research Program (AMRP), TNS’ annual survey of wealthy U.S. households, the number has shot to 8.2 million as of mid-2004, a 33 percent increase over last year. The addition of two million households to the high net worth market is the largest increase ever recorded by the study, which began monitoring this group in 1981.