Herbert M. and Marion O. Sandler
No. 5
Amount Given or Pledged 2002-2006: $1.4 billion
Causes: Medical research, education, social reform
Golden West Financial honchos Herbert and Marion Sandler joined the ranks of America’s most generous philanthropists after selling their company, the country’s second largest savings and loan, to Wachovia this summer for $25 billion. When the deal closed, the husband and wife co-CEOs plowed more than $1.3 billion into unnamed charities and then quietly went back to work. In a year of well-publicized mega-gifts and retirements, that’s about as contrarian as you can get. The press-shy couple from Oakland, Calif., has handed out more cash this year than many big donors do in a lifetime. But they haven’t always done it this privately. Two years ago after a making a $15 million challenge grant to New York-based Human Rights Watch, they were lauded publicly as the largest individual donors to the organization. The family has also funded research on asthma and several parasitic diseases.
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