The Million Dollar List, compiled by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, documents publicly announced gifts of $1 million or more. While the Million Dollar List is not a comprehensive record of all million-dollar-plus gifts, it is the nation’s most complete data set on donation-level giving of $1 million or more.
Data collection for the original Million Dollar List began in 1963 with the work of Arthur C. Frantzreb, a nationally renowned philanthropy advisor, who continued keeping a record of qualifying gifts for more than 33 years. Mr. Frantzreb and his wife, Jane, collected the data by combing announcements in major publications, which they documented on index cards. These index cards are now housed in the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy Archives at the Indiana University Indianapolis Library.
The Million Dollar List, with its record of million-dollar-plus gifts over 33 years was given by Arthur Frantzreb, Chairman Emeritus of Hartsook Companies, Inc., and Robert Hartsook to Indiana University’s then-named Center on Philanthropy in 1999.
With the contribution of this indispensable history, the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy agreed to compile and distribute the Million Dollar List to carry on Frantzreb and Hartsook's work as a subscription service to fundraisers, a record for historians and an inspiration for potential donors. The school converted the subscription-only list to a free online resource in May 2011.
Between 2000 and 2016, the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, published an online record of publicly announced charitable gifts of $1 million or more given by U.S. residents, corporations, private foundations, and other grantmaking nonprofits to domestic or international entities across a range of charitable subsectors. This historical data can be accessed through the Historical Data (2000-2016) sub-menu.
Million-dollar-plus gifts represent an important threshold for donors. The goal of this project is to create a more complete picture of large gifts and how they fit into the landscape of giving in general. Data for the Million Dollar List between 2000 and 2016 were from 990 data, media reports, and other publicly available sources researched by the school.
During the period of 2021–2023, the school upgraded the methodology and refined the use of data terms, which can be found in the following pages: The Methodology and Meaning of Data Terms.
