What is the Million Dollar List?
The Million Dollar List tracks publicly reported charitable gifts of $1 million or more and provides data and resources about giving at that level. It is the most comprehensive, free, online public record of gifts of this size.
Features:
- Free
- Accessible online
- Searchable
- Anyone who has verifiable information about philanthropic gifts of $1 million or more may report a gift; the information will be confirmed by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
- Downloadable reports
- Links to relevant resources
What does the list consist of?
- Approximately 70,000 publicly reported charitable gifts of $1 million or more.
- Gifts made by individuals, corporations, foundations and other grant making nonprofits.
What makes the list one-of-a-kind?
- It’s unique because it covers nearly 70,000 gifts of $1 million and up in one database (the most comprehensive that exists) that’s searchable by factors such as geography,dollar amount, type of charity, donor, or nonprofit organization name.
Why is the list significant?
- The list reveals patterns and trends in million-dollar giving.
- It helps fill existing knowledge gaps about gifts at that level.
Sample findings:
- What are the trends? Individual giving of million-dollar gifts and the stock market are strongly correlated. Changes in the number of gifts as well as changes in the dollar amount of gifts of $1 million or more closely follow trends in the stock market.
- Who gives? About 70 percent of the 6,800 publicly reported gifts from individuals were from people who made one gift of $1 million or more.
- Where do the gifts go? Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of individual gifts of $1 million or more go to organizations based in the state where the donor lives.
- Who gets them? Higher education organizations receive a far greater number of million-dollar gifts from individuals than does any other type of charity. Foundations receive far more dollars in million-dollar-and-up gifts from individuals than other types of organizations receive.
- Where do mega-gifts ($50 million or more) come from? Approximately 4 percent of gifts from individuals are mega-gifts. About 1 percent of corporate gifts and 1 percent of foundation gifts are mega-gifts.
What can I do with the list to help me or those I advise give more strategically?
- See where, when, and for what purposes $1 million-plus gifts are being made and who is making them.
- See which organizations with causes similar to your/your donor’s interests are receiving large gifts.
- See where peers are giving.
- See where gaps in large-scale funding may exist.
- Identify potential opportunities to collaborate to increase the impact of a gift.
How can you sort the data? By:
- geography
- dollar amount
- type of charity
- donor
- nonprofit organization
- customizable searches
What years does the list cover and how often will the list be updated?
- The data currently cover gifts of $1 million and up made from 2000 through the present, and is added regularly. Donors are encouraged to self-report via the website, thereby further strengthening what is known about philanthropy at this level.