Jamsetji of the Tata Group Tata is the world’s top philanthropist in the last 100 years, and Azim Premji is ranked 12th in the top 50.
Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, founder of the Tata Group, has topped the EdelGive Hurun Philanthropists of the Century list, surpassing stalwarts such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. According to the report, the Tata Group has donated a total of $102.4 billion in areas such as education and healthcare.
“The total philanthropic value of Tata is made up of 66 percent Tata Sons,” EdelGive Hurun said in a press release. “In 1892, he established the JN Tata Endowment for higher education, which marked the beginning of Tata Trusts.”
The Tata Group is the only Indian company to have made it into the top ten. Apart from that, Azim Premji, the founder-chairman of Wipro Ltd, is another Indian on the list. He was ranked 12th with $22 billion in donations.
Among the top five are Bill and Melinda Gates, Henry Wellcome, Howard Hughes, and Warren Buffett.
These rankings were based on Total Philanthropic Value, which is calculated as the value of assets adjusted for inflation, plus the total of gifts or distributions made to date. The necessary data was extracted from publicly available sources and, in some cases, shared directly by the foundations.
The list also included 39 people from the United States, five from the United Kingdom, three from China, and one from Portugal and Switzerland. Individual donations totaled $832 billion, of which $503 billion is currently in foundations and $329 billion has been disbursed in the last century.
“It is surprising that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk did not make the list. The stories of the twentieth century’s most prominent philanthropists tell the storey of modern philanthropy. The legacies of the world’s first billionaires, such as Carnegie and Rockefeller, to today’s Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, demonstrate how wealth has been redistributed,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of Hurun Report.
Other foundations also made significant contributions to combat the unprecedented health and economic crisis caused by COVID-19.
