Merriam Webster defines the word ‘Rich’ as someone having abundant possessions, especially material wealth or high value or quality.
The thirst for riches is unequivocally amongst all human beings. We want to achieve all the richness and comforts in the world undividedly, but only after reaching a point of the continuous hustle for more, very few understand their due diligence to people in need, and bequeath their possession for the welfare of others. For someone rich is money, for others richness is generosity.
In the latest, Hurun Research and EdelGive Foundation released the 2021 EdelGive Hurun Philanthropists of the Century, a ranking of the world’s most generous individuals from the last 100 years.
Indian industry’s doyen Jamsetji Tata has emerged as the biggest philanthropist globally in the last 100 years by donating $102 billion, as per a list of top-50 givers prepared by Hurun Report and EdelGive Foundation.
Tata, the founder of what has now become a group spanning interests from salt to software, is ahead of others like Bill Gates and his now-estranged wife Melinda who have donated $74.6 billion, Warren Buffet ( $37.4 billion), George Soros ($34.8 billion) and John D Rockefeller ($26.8 billion), the list showed
“Whilst American and European philanthropists may have dominated the thinking of philanthropy over the last century, Jamsetji Tata, founder of India’s Tata Group, is the world’s biggest philanthropist,” Rupert Hoogewerf, the chairman and chief researcher at Hurun said in a statement.
By the virtue of the two-thirds of ownership of the trusts engaged in various welfare schemes including education and healthcare has helped Tatas achieve the top spot, he said, adding that Jamsetji Tata’s giving started in 1892 itself.
According to the report, the total philanthropic value of Jamsetji Tata is made up of 66% of Tata Sons, solely based on the value of listed entities. Jamsetji Tata was born in 1839 in Navsari, a city in south Gujarat. Tata began to prosper in the 1870s after floating the Central India Spinning Weaving and Manufacturing Company. He set up the JN Tata Endowment in 1892 for higher education, beginning with Tata Trusts. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, often referred to him as the ‘one-man planning commission’.
Other than Jamsetji Tata, Azim Premji of Wipro is the only other Indian, who has virtually given his entire fortune of $22 billion for philanthropic causes.
Furthermore, the majority of the philanthropists in the list are from the US with 39 people on the list, followed by the UK (5) and China (3). Total 37 of the donors are dead while only 13 of them are alive.
“At this rate, expect to see fifty or more break through the $100 billion mark within the next five years,” Hoogewerf said.
However, it seems the business moguls are becoming rich but giving less to the people in need. “Today’s billionaires are not keeping up with philanthropy, making money much faster than they are giving it away,” Hoogewerf added.
Here’s the list top 50 philanthropists of the last 100 years:
1. Jamsetji Tata
2. Bill & Melinda Gates
3. Henry Wellcome
4. Howard Hughes
5. Warren Buffett
6. George Soros
7. Hans Wilsdorf
8. JK Lilly Sr
9. John D Rockefeller
10. Edsel Ford
11. Robert Wood Johnson II
12. Azim Premji
13. William & Flora Hewlett
14. David Packard
15. J Paul Getty
16. John D. MacArthur
17. Will Keith Kellog
18. Andrew Carnegie
19. Alisa Mellon Bruce & Paul Mellon
20. Sam & Helen Walton
21. Gordon & Betty Moore
22. W. Garfield Weston
23. Michael Bloomberg
24. Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian
25. Margaret A Cargill
26. Conrad Hilton
27. Joseph N. Pew Jr.
28. Harry & Leona Helmsley
29. MacKenzie Scott
30. Chris Hohn & Jamie Cooper
31. James Buchanan Duke
32. Ma Huateng
33. S. S. Kresge
34. Jim Simons
35. Charles Stewart Mott
36. Ma Yun
37. Eli Broad
38. Robert Winship Woodruff
39. John Templeton
40. Jeffry M. Picower & Barbara Picower
41. William Hesketh Lever
42. Harry Weinberg
43. James Harvey Irvine Sr
44. John Knight & James Knight
45. William Lewis Moody, Jr.
46. Ewing Marion Kauffman
47. Li Ka-shing
48. Isaac Wolfson
49. Jesse H. Jones
50. Michael & Susan Dell
