Philanthropy Awards, 2023

Following a few years of chaotic change and disruption, it’s tempting to view 2023 as a year in which philanthropy slid back into its comfy, often frustrating norms.

After all, data is emerging to suggest that there was not, and there probably won’t be, any sweeping revolution to democratize philanthropy. Most funders, it turns out, still see MacKenzie Scott’s massive, no-strings funding as an anomaly rather than a model they can follow. Murmurs of fatigue and even legal threats to racial justice philanthropy threaten to undo the progress made in the aftermath of the 2020 uprising. Even giving to climate change, which was finally booming for a couple of years there, seems to have leveled out to its lackluster sliver of annual giving.

Not so fast, though. A closer look reveals that the shockwaves of 2020 continue to reverberate, and further disruption on the horizon (inequality, AI, climate change, and dear god, more Trump) means that donors and foundations cannot — or better not — get too comfortable.

Indeed, there is still a wealth of ambitious, record-breaking, norm-shattering activity happening in the sector. Grant amounts are getting bigger and bigger. Participatory grantmaking, albeit in modest numbers, is here to stay. More foundations are spending down. And it’s clear that a large, dedicated set of funders will never back down from their commitments to racial justice, climate change and other defining challenges of our time.

All of which is to say, any backsliding aside, this was yet another wild year in philanthropy. Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly. Hope you enjoy this year’s IPPYs. And then buckle up for 2024.

The 2023 IPPYs

Philanthropists of the Year: Jim and Marilyn Simons

This represents something of a lifetime achievement award for the couple, best known for their $5 billion Simons Foundation, which has been a leading supporter of basic science since 1994, and even has its own in-house research institute. The Simonses have handed over leadership of the foundation to astrophysicist David Spergel, but this was still a big year for the couple, as they made a unique, unrestricted gift of $500 million to Stony Brook University, a public school with an impressive track record of boosting economic mobility. Their legacy continues to grow as the Simons heirs have become important players in climate, education and social justice.

The MacKenzie Scott Award: MacKenzie Scott

We couldn’t keep naming Scott as philanthropist of the year, but she remains the most prolific and exciting megadonor of our time. So we made up this award for her.

Foundation Leader of the Year: Larry Kramer

Here again, we wanted to honor an impressive career in the sector, as Kramer steps down as president of the $13 billion Hewlett Foundation. Kramer has served as a bold thought leader and longtime champion of climate change philanthropy.

Most Exaggerated Reports of Death: Effective Altruism

If you followed mainstream coverage of the Sam Bankman-Fried fiasco over the past year, you’d assume the EA movement was pushing up daisies. Rest assured, it is alive and well, and for good reasons.

Most Promising New Foundation Leader: Deepak Bhargava

The immigration advocate and movement leader is now at the head of JPB Foundation, and his early moves are making waves. We’re eager to see what’s next.

Tallest Order for Philanthropy: Wrangling AI

Philanthropy has been involved in artificial intelligence for several years now, both advancing it and warning of potential dangers. Still, we have a hard time imagining the sector can do much to steer this runaway train.

Biggest Test on Philanthropy’s Horizon: The 2024 Election

We named the 2020 election philanthropy’s biggest success story of that year. Are funders prepared for the next round? It’s already looking to be even more of a you-know-what storm than the last.

Most Intriguing Philanthropic Family: The Waltons

For years, the Waltons were an enormous but fairly predictable source of conservative K-12 and environmental funding. These days, the family is all over the place, with their flagship foundation being run by the grandkids and a new ED, and several new philanthropies exploding onto the scene with more progressive grantmaking.

Billionaire Whisperer of the Year: The Audacious Project

This funding competition organized by TED has become one of the biggest influencers in philanthropy, channeling funds from some of the world’s wealthiest people in support of the next “big ideas.”

Newcomer of the Year: Tom and Theresa Preston-Werner

We like where these new Giving Pledgers are heading, proclaiming an “urgency to redistribute our wealth” and creating a new climate organization, 128 Collective, that embraces youth organizing and progressive politics as key pathways for change.

Philanthropic Siblings of the Year: Anne and Susan Wojcicki

These sisters and tech industry winners have been active philanthropists for some time, and are stepping up their game. Anne signed the Giving Pledge last year and Susan signed this year. Look for more giving from these two on the horizon.

Most Disruptive Successor: Alex Soros at Open Society Foundations

He may not be the eldest son, but the patrilineal line is alive and well at OSF, with George Soros’ son Alex taking charge. Even so, he’s charting a very different path than his father, accelerating an overhaul of the sprawling foundation.

Community Foundation of the Year: The Cleveland Foundation

Of all the community foundations doing incredible work, we were struck this year by the oldest of them all, which moved its headquarters to become the centerpiece of a new innovation district located in a chronically disinvested neighborhood.

Local Donors of the Year: Miami’s Perez Family

The family of Jorge Pérez is best known for arts giving, including Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM). But they’re a big, multigenerational philanthropic presence in the city. “Anytime… we need to put out a bat signal to the community, they are always first to step up.”

Celebrity Philanthropist of the Year: Selena Gomez

The multi-hyphenate superstar took the spotlight this year as a major advocate, fundraiser and backer of mental health causes. It’s always a little hard to tell how much is coming out of celebrity donors’ own pockets, but her Rare Impact Fund aims to raise $100 million to expand access to mental health services.

Hollywood Philanthropist We’ll Miss the Most: Norman Lear

Lear will always be best known for his incredible track record of creating the hit sitcoms that defined the American family in the 1970s and 1980s. But he also left behind a lifelong legacy of philanthropy, as well as advocacy for progressive causes like civil rights.

Worst Philanthropists of the Year: Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein

The megadonors with ties to efforts to overturn the 2020 election were reportedly the main donors behind a push to raise the threshold for passing Ohio ballot measures in an effort to torpedo an abortion rights initiative.

Most Troubling Case of Donor Influence: The campus billionaire revolt

The pressure that megadonors applied at Ivy League schools this year around the Israel-Hamas war was an eye-opener to just how much sway high-dollar philanthropists have at top universities — and how entitled they feel to use it.

Most Powerful Conservative Funder You’ve Probably Never Heard of: Diana Davis Spencer Foundation

With a big new Heritage Foundation commitment adding to its D.C. footprint, this right-wing stalwart may still well be one of the biggest conservative grantmakers out there, but one that draws little attention.

Most Intriguing New Program: Omidyar’s Culture of Belonging

We’ve seen a lot of hand-wringing in philanthropy over the need to bridge divides, but Omidyar launched a program this year that is uniquely rigorous in its understanding of the topic and ambitious in its goals.

Biggest Eggs That Have Yet to Hatch: Giving Pledgers

The tally of the ultra-wealthy who have committed to giving away at least half of their fortunes keeps growing, but when it comes to the pledge’s ability to move money at scale, we stopped holding our breath a long time ago.

Highest Stakes Philanthropic Endgame: Mike Bloomberg

This year, Bloomberg announced he would give his 88% stake in the finance and media company that bears his name to charity. What exactly will that look like, and where will a fortune close to $100 billion go? Hard to say, but it will make the former New York mayor’s philanthropic footprint even more staggering than it already is.

Runner Up: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The Gates Foundation has been such a colossal fixture in philanthropy and global affairs that it’s easy to forget the plan has always been to spend down and close. This year, we’ve really started to wonder how, exactly, that’s going to be possible. Add in Bill and Melinda’s divorce, and the fact that 93-year-old Warren Buffett’s hoard may (or may not) end up with the foundation, and who knows how this story will end.

Biggest Funding Oversight: The opioid crisis

The Robert Wood Johnson and Conrad N. Hilton foundations both ended their funding for substance use disorders in recent years, just as the national opioid crisis drastically escalated. Their exits reflect a broader, persistent funding gap.

Runner-up: Suicide prevention

The U.S. has the highest rate of death by suicide among wealthy nations, with one death every 11 minutes. But we found a surprising shortage of support for the cause.

Most Outgunned Funder in Need of Backup: The Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts

FORE remains the only national foundation that focuses exclusively on opioid use prevention and treatment. When are more big funders going to step up?

Megadonor We’ll Miss the Most: Chuck Feeney

The late Atlantic Philanthropies donor’s achievement remains unsurpassed among billionaires with his level of wealth: actually emptying the safe via his philanthropic giving.

Runner Up: Gordon and Betty Moore

We also said goodbye to both Gordon and Betty Moore this year, following an impressive and influential late-in-life philanthropic career in support of the environment, science, higher ed, healthcare and more.

Foundation We’ll Miss the Most: Kendeda Fund

We love a spend-down foundation, but it’s still sad to see the good ones go. Diana Blank and her daughter Dena Kimball will close shop after 30 years of impactful grantmaking. They’ve been refreshingly candid about the process.

Runner Up: Castellano Foundation

Another spend-down, this family foundation has one of the more heartwarming stories in philanthropy, created after Alcario and Carmen Castellano won the lottery. After years spent supporting Latino nonprofits, they wrapped things up this year.

Foundation Leader We’ll Miss the Most: Alberto Ibargüen

The Knight Foundation president stepped down after 20 years on the job, leaving a legacy that included investments in local news, addressing the impact of technology on media and democracy, and cultivating the arts.

Runner-Up: Barbara Picower

Picower is the donor behind the JPB Foundation, but she’s also been its hands-on leader, shaping it into the important progressive funder it is today. Picower’s handing over the reins early next year.

Least Google-able Megadonors: Larry Page and Sergey Brin

For years, we've considered these two the sleeping giants of high-dollar philanthropy, easily capable of becoming the next Bloomberg or Gates. But at the end of the day, we don’t really know that much about what they are doing with their respective fortunes. Good luck finding a full accounting of either donor’s giving, which is either limited to 990s or obscured by DAFs.

Fundraising Success Story of the Year: GroundBreak

A coalition of over 40 Twin Cities partners raised nearly $1 billion and counting to take on disparities of housing and business ownership in Black communities.

Funder Collaborative of the Year: Press Forward Initiative

Twenty-two funders walked into a meeting and walked out with a commitment to spend at least a half-billion dollars over five years to support struggling local news. OK, it was several meetings, and Press Forward has fielded some legitimate criticism, but this is a huge development and a real coup for MacArthur President John Palfrey.

Trend of the Year: Participatory grantmaking

We wrote about this as a “trend we hope sticks around” in 2021, and this year, it’s become popular enough that it finally deserves the nod. It’s still pretty limited in terms of overall dollars, but has officially gone from edgy outlier to a fully legitimate tool in any funder’s tool belt.

Biggest Disappointment: Stalled general operating support

After 2020, it really seemed like general operating support was finally having its moment. The data suggest a bump, but it remains far from the norm, and we’re still trying to understand why.

Lost Cause of the Year: Democratizing philanthropy

OK, it’s not an entirely lost cause — see our “Trend of the Year,” after all — and we love to see all of the dogged efforts to tear down the sector’s ivory towers. But there are some unavoidable realities that are ensuring philanthropy remains an elite space.

Most Welcome Surprise: Continued commitments to racial justice

There was always a lot of justified concern that once all the heightened interest died down, philanthropy would abandon racial justice as a cause — and that concern is still valid. But this year brought a lot of encouraging signs and exciting commitments that show at least a segment of funders are in this fight for the long haul.

Biggest Eyeroll: Ken Griffin’s $300 million to Harvard

In these highly polarized times, Ken Griffin did the impossible by uniting critics on the left and the right in opposition to his $300 million naming gift to a school, Harvard, which has an endowment that exceeds the GDPs of dozens of countries.

Philanthropic Dust-up of the Year: The “defense of pluralism”

Was it a thinly veiled defense of the status quo? Philanthropy’s equivalent of “all lives matter?” A warning against partisan attacks on the sector? Everyone had an opinion about that puzzling joint statement in defense of “philanthropic pluralism.”

Head in the Sand Award: Sector groups’ inaction on DAF reform

Even as public dissatisfaction grows, philanthropy sector groups showed their customary lack of appetite for reform in 2023, raising the question: When will the philanthrosphere confront the obsolescence of existing laws, especially when it comes to donor-advised funds?

Climate Funder of the Year: Ballmer Group

Steve and Connie Ballmer just made their first climate grants in late 2022, but since then have shot to the upper echelons of donors to the cause. The Ballmer Group announced $431 million in new grants and signaled plans to give much more.

Green Funding Trend of the Year: Intermediaries, once again

Funders started new environmental intermediaries focused on federal spending, a just transition in the Global South, Indigenous front-line groups, community foundation climate action, and more. Intermediaries have filled an important role in green funding, but some say the profusion is making their heads spin.

Biggest Philanthropic Hail Mary: Solar geoengineering

It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that billionaires would get behind a grandiose tech fix for a complex social and systemic problem like climate change. In 2023, we saw several throw their money and reputations behind the idea of dimming the sun.

Most Overlooked Green Cause: Youth organizing

Young people are responsible for putting climate change in the news around the world. Yet until recently, they received only 0.76% of climate grants from major foundations. Hopefully, the new Youth Climate Justice Fund, and others inspired by it, offers a path to changing that.

Animal Welfare Funder of the Year: Jim Greenbaum

Greenbaum’s been giving away his money for more than 20 years and has now pivoted almost exclusively to supporting veganism and related causes.

Arts Funder of the Year: Ellen Michelson

Older Americans rarely have access to arts education opportunities, despite their myriad benefits. Kudos to Minneapolis-based philanthropist Ellen Michelson, who is working to change that.

Education Funder of the Year: Raikes Foundation

The Raikes Foundation takes on thorny problems like vast inequities in education funding, and explosive issues like the education culture wars. Cofounder Tricia Raikes has also pushed philanthropy to provide more support for students experiencing mental health and homelessness.

Early Ed Funder of the Year: Heising-Simons Foundation

A growing number of funders are backing early childhood education so there are many worthy contenders for this award. But Heising-Simons has been stalwart in its support for innovative funding models, early educator preparation and fair compensation. The foundation’s also an active partner in most prominent national early education collaboratives.

Global Funder of the Year: Howard Buffett

While Buffett and his foundation don’t send out press releases, their laser-focused dedication to supporting war-torn Ukraine is big news, now topping $500 million and counting.

Science Funder of the Year: The Kavli Foundation

Under new President Cynthia Friend, the Kavli Foundation is shifting gears from establishing research centers to making grants. After endowing a whopping 20 self-sustaining Kavli Institutes over the years, the foundation deserves a round of applause.

Most Out-There Bequest: $200 million for SETI

The SETI Institute has been scanning the heavens for signs of extraterrestrial life for decades, but with perpetually unstable funding. The estate of Franklin Antonio, the late cofounder of Qualcomm, made a game-changing gift that puts SETI on solid ground.

Funder Affinity Group Leader of the Year: Lindsay Goldman, Grantmakers in Aging

She’s passionate about a hugely important but underfunded issue, always working, always connecting people, and she knows how to throw a great party (well, annual conference).

Philanthropy Scholar of the Year: Ben Soskis

When reporters (including ours) are looking for sharp insights and historical context surrounding philanthropy, this Urban Institute researcher is very often the person they call. Ben also runs a pretty darn good philanthropy blog of his own, HistPhil.

Philanthropy Critic of the Year: House Ways and Means Committee

We’ve been warning for years that the pitchforks could come for philanthropy in our populist times. Is a rattling congressional probe into the “political activities” of nonprofits the start of something bigger? Stay tuned.

Best Guide to Family Philanthropy: Nick Tedesco, NCFP

Since taking over the National Center for Family Philanthropy a few years ago, Tedesco and his team have put their group on the vanguard of philanthropic practices just as the greatest intergenerational wealth transfer gets rolling.

Best Year-End Decision: Subscribe to IP

If you’ve been considering an IP subscription but are still parked outside paywall, you’re missing out on thousands of articles, funder profiles and explainers, our series of deep-dive research papers, the State of American Philanthropy, and our newly added Donor Advisory Center. If you work in the philanthrosphere in any role, you should subscribe.

And to those who did subscribe in 2023 — thank you!

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