In the Million Dollar List (MDL), a ‘gift’ is a singular charitable donation of $1 million or more made by one donor to one defined recipient. For example, if a donor gave $5 million in total to three organizations, then each donation of a specific amount to the three separate organizations count as three gifts. These gifts were given by four primary types of sources:
- Individuals, which consist of donors who are individuals, couples, families, or anonymous donors;
- Foundations, which include all private and corporate foundations, as well as giving made through donor-advised funds and similar philanthropic vehicles;
- Corporations, which include all for-profit companies and businesses; and
- Others, which consist of all other grantmaking nonprofits such as regrantors, collaboratives, pooled funds, funding intermediaries, etc.
Mega-gifts are defined as $50 million or more, and ultra-large gifts as $500 million or more.
These million-dollar-plus gifts went to 10 recipient subsectors. The subsector classifications are based on the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities-Core Codes (NTEE-CC). The gifts are categorized in their respective subsectors based on the core mission of the recipient organization, rather than the specific cause or purpose of each gift. For example, if a donor contributed $5 million for medical research at a university-administrated hospital, the gift would be categorized under ‘Higher Education’ rather than ‘Health’. The recipient subsectors included in the MDL are:
- Arts and Culture (e.g., museums, theaters, public broadcasting)
- Education (e.g., K-12 schools, libraries, scholarship funds)
- Environment (e.g., zoos, organizations focused on climate action & advocacy, wildlife conservation, and animal welfare)
- Health (e.g., independent hospitals and clinics, medical research centers)
- Higher Education (e.g., universities and colleges, hospitals and research centers that are part of a university system)
- Human Services (e.g., food banks, housing and shelter, disaster preparedness and relief, public safety, direct provision of social services)
- International/Overseas (e.g., U.S.-based organizations with programs and initiatives operating outside of the U.S., and organizations based and operating outside of the U.S.)
- Public and Societal Benefit (e.g., independent social and scientific research, community foundations, nonprofits focused on policy, advocacy, human rights, socioeconomic issues, etc.)
- Religious Organizations (e.g., places of worship, faith-based groups)
- Others