Highlighted Philanthropists
Veronica Atkins
Atkins is one of the top fifty most generous philanthropists. Newsweek also proclaimed her part of the “All-Star Team" in philanthropy.
Naveen Jain
Jain has been named one of the Top 20 Entrepreneurs by Red Herring, recognized for winning the Albert Einstein Technology Medal Winner, and received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2007.
George Soros
The Soros Foundations are an international network of local, Soros-founded foundations promoting sociopolitical activities.
Kenneth Langone
In 1978, he partnered with Bernard Marcus and Arthur Blank to found Home Depot, which today is one of the largest and most successful chains in the home improvement industry. He has contributed almost $150 million dollars to various charities.
Bernard Osher
Bernard Osher is the co-Founder of World Savings. He started his career in business in the management of his family's hardware and plumbing supplies store. From there, he joined Oppenheimer & Company and moved to New York. Later, he took his business sense westward to California and co-founded World Savings. World Savings is currently the second largest financial institution in the United States.
Bernard Osher became a name-worthy philanthropist in 1977. As an art enthusiast and advocate of good education, Bernard Osher decided to invest in the state of Maine and his foster city, San Francisco, by funding projects that involved education and the arts.
Founded in 1977, the Bernard Osher Foundation is devoted to five major areas of focus:
- Scholarships for Higher Education (Osher Scholars and Fellows Program)
- Scholarships for University Reentry Students aged 25 to 50 (Osher Reentry Scholarship Program)
- Programs addressing the educational needs of seasoned adults at institutions of higher education (Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes)
- Selected integrative medicine programs
- Arts and educational programs in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area and the State of Maine
In 2006, the Bernard Osher Foundation spent a total of $723.2 million dollars in support of these and other programs. These initiatives have resulted in the creation of small programs in several institutions in the United States that promote lifelong learning.