Every year, billions of dollars find their way from the pockets of the very wealthy to the coffers of needy institutions and philanthropic organizations. Looking back, 2017 proved to be a prolific year for individual acts of giving. The Chronicle of Philanthropy—a news and information source for all things charitable—tracks the amount of money that’s given by donors, and the organization releases data on the largest donations made public each year. In 2017, the ten biggest charitable gifts totaled  $10.2 billion.

At the top of the Chronicle's list of the ten biggest donations of 2017 were three mega-gifts of a $1 billion or more, all given by well-heeled philanthropists who made their money in the tech world.

Below is the list in order of the of the top three donors of 2017:

  1. Bill and Melinda Gates donated $4.6 billion in Microsoft stock.
  2. Facebook founder Mark ZuckerbZuckerberg, and wife Priscilla Chan, gave a $1.9 billion gift to the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
  3. Michael Dell, the founder of Dell computers, and his wife Susan gifted $1 billion as part of an endowment for their own charitable organization, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.

Read the full article of the largest charitable donations in 2017 by Karsten Strauss at Forbes.