Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on April 11, 2025.
Philanthropic giving isn’t often associated with youth, and there are a few good reasons for that. Traditionally, the very rich spend their prime accumulating wealth and only pivot to giving large chunks of it away in their sunset years. And as for inherited wealth, young heirs have a reputation (if sometimes undeserved) as spenders, not givers — or else they’re putting in long hours as understudies in the business of further padding the family fortune.
These days, though, it’s becoming less easy to pigeonhole organized philanthropy as the pastime of people of a certain age.
By 2045, an estimated $84 trillion (yes, trillion) will make its way into the hands of younger Americans, with as much as $16 trillion changing generational hands in the next 10 years. This ongoing Great Wealth Transfer will forever change the sector’s landscape as Gen Xers, millennials and even representatives of Gen Z preside over an ever-increasing mountain of potential philanthropic dollars.
At the same time, seismic shifts in how great fortunes are made — thanks mostly to the rise of Silicon Valley and its wunderkind founders — have put billions in the hands of youthful super-citizens who can and have wielded their outsized gains to great effect in the nonprofit world. Many of them aren’t waiting until retirement age to stand up sizable philanthropic operations.
The long-running shift toward liberalism among much of America’s upper crust may also be reshuffling the deck when it comes to young folks in philanthropy. The children of the rich have long adopted left-leaning stances as a form of rebellion, but today, the richest congressional districts are in Democratic hands and the center-left party is firmly identified with the professional, well-educated class (for better or worse). Going forward, many in the trust fund set will pursue social activism with their older relatives as partners, not opponents.
In the list below, we’ve aimed to compile a nonexhaustive list of some of philanthropy’s many power players under the age of 40. As with our past lists of powerful figures in the sector, our criteria here is less about raw dollar amounts alone and more about the ability to make things happen, or to influence others to do so. In some cases, these fresh-faced funders wield actual control over billion-dollar fortunes. Others are heirs or movers and shakers within a larger philanthropic dynasty. Others still are sector leaders, donor organizers and even cultural “influencers” (one’s a top YouTuber and several others top the pop charts).
As we noted when we published our list of philanthropy’s most powerful heirs, it’s worth keeping in mind that the hereditary and even aristocratic qualities of great wealth in our new Gilded Age should be critiqued rather than celebrated. But at the same time, many of these 20- and 30-somethings are themselves attuned to the darker side of sizable wealth. As they grow older, time will tell whether they go on to give in ways that differ substantially from their forebears.
Yahya Alazrak
As the executive director of Resource Generation since 2021, Alazrak aims to “disrupt the pattern of wealthy people being trusted to decide what strategies and initiatives are most worthy of funding, and return that trust to the people that are most affected by decisions.” Resource Generation’s goal is to organize wealthy young people to recognize their unearned privilege and decide how to use their wealth for good, mostly by giving away a large percentage of it. According to the group, its members give more than $100 million to social justice movements each year, underscoring the role that young people with wealth play as donors as well as activists.
Sam Ballmer
The son of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his wife Connie Ballmer, Sam Ballmer is an heir apparent in one of the world’s richest families (Forbes pegs Steve Ballmer’s wealth at well over $100 billion). Beginning in 2022, the younger Ballmer has overseen the Ballmer Group’s expansion into climate-focused philanthropy. The aim there is to leverage funding commitments toward action that significantly mitigates greenhouse gas emissions and achieves global net-zero goals. In August 2024, Ballmer announced the launch of Rainier Climate Group, which will expand on the Ballmers’ initial investments.
Leena Barakat
Barakat heads the Women’s Donor Network, a funding intermediary that moves money for gender equity and other progressive causes, including rapid-response funding to providers of reproductive care and front-line activist organizations. Previously, she spent seven years at the Tides Foundation, where she created a corporate social impact program.
Sam Barnett
Barnett is a Ph.D. “quant” who has built a Chicago-based brainy investing firm, SBB Research Group, that has a foundation, which is unusual for small finance companies. While grants mainly go to local nonprofits and STEM scholarships, Barnett’s firm also recently supported Surge for Water, an NGO working in Africa to deliver safe water and sanitation.
Katherine H. Christiano
As the board chair of the William Penn Foundation, Christiano, a great-granddaughter of foundation founders Phoebe and Otto Haas, finds herself in a highly influential position to steer the $3.3 billion foundation as it evolves its funding priorities. She’s just one example of a longstanding phenomenon in family philanthropy: next-gen heirs stepping up and shifting the clan’s giving in an updated direction.
Morgan Curtis
Almost by accident, Morgan Curtis learned that her family’s fortune was derived from gold mining, fossil fuel investments and other ventures that contradicted her values. Those values draw her to grassroots social movements, Black liberation organizations, Indigenous land projects and climate justice groups. As a “coach, facilitator, ritualist and organizer,” she aims, in part, to help heirs talk openly about their wealth with peers and family. Curtis’ decisions have reportedly tested her relationship with her father.
Jimmy Donaldson
Most kids have known Donaldson for years as MrBeast, the YouTube creator famous for his antic-filled giveaways. The streamer-turned-philanthropist operates the most popular YouTube channel by far, with a subscriber count north of 377 million. He also founded Beast Philanthropy in 2020. Donaldson’s acts of largesse have grown since the time he gave 4 million cookies to his 4 millionth subscriber. But Donaldson’s operation hasn’t been free from controversy, and some consider his brand of giving “clicktavism” or “stunt philanthropy.” However you slice it, though, MrBeast is the face of philanthropy for millions of young people today.
Romy Drucker
Before joining the Walton Family Foundation as director of its K-12 Education Program in 2019, Drucker held leadership positions throughout the education space. She also co-founded and led The 74, a major nonprofit ed news organization, and she’s on the board of the ed-focused City Fund, founded by billionaires Reed Hastings and John Arnold.
Phoebe Gates
The 21-year-old daughter of Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates is fast becoming an influential philanthropic defender of reproductive rights. Ignited by the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Gates has reportedly donated millions of dollars to groups providing urgent care to women without access to abortions. Going forward, she’ll not only have the ear of hundreds of thousands of Gen Z women on social media — she’ll also have the ear of two of the most influential billionaires in the world.
Caitlin Heising
Caitlin Heising is the daughter of Liz Simons and Mark Heising, the founders of the Heising-Simons Foundation, whose fortune derives in turn from Caitlin’s grandfather, the late hedge fund guru and science mega-giver Jim Simons. As vice chair of a family foundation that disbursed over $173 million in 2023, the younger Heising focuses her attention on human rights and criminal justice reform. Her impressive resume includes a spot on the board of Human Rights Watch — and she’s also a founding member of Maverick Collective, which aims to end extreme poverty around the world.
Reed Jobs
The son of Steve Jobs and powerhouse Silicon Valley philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, Reed Jobs was moved by his father’s cancer diagnosis to pursue a life focused on a cure. In 2023, he founded the cancer-research-focused venture fund Yosemite as a spin-off from his mother’s Emerson Collective, with $200 million from investors and institutions including the venture capitalist John Doerr, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller University, and MIT. The venture fund is not a philanthropy, but it maintains a donor-advised fund that will reportedly make grants to scientists in cancer research.
Lyle Matthew Kan
Kan, who currently serves as the interim president and CEO of Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP), is steadily building a strong record of leadership in the sector. He has also held top roles at CHANGE Philanthropy, the affinity group, and spent a decade in the LGBTQ funding world, including at Funders for LGBTQ Issues and the Stonewall Community Foundation. Last year, he joined the board of Candid.
Mike Krieger
The Instagram cofounder and his wife, Kaitlyn, created the Future Justice Fund in 2015, with a focus on criminal justice reform. The fund has supported groups working on bail reform, alternative sentencing and other priorities. It also makes grants to bolster income security with a focus on cash-transfer strategies, an approach that’s been popular with Silicon Valley givers.
Bridgit Mendler
Mendler may be best known for her roles on Disney Channel in the mid-aughts and as a musician. (Her 2012 song “Ready or Not” peaked at number 49 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.) But not only is the former child actress the cofounder and CEO of the startup Northwood Space — she is also a serious fundraiser. She has raised millions of dollars for groups like UNICEF, Save the Children, and Disney’s World Wide Fund for Nature. She also serves as an ambassador to educational equity nonprofit First Book.
Jake and William Moritz
The two sons of the billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz and his wife, Harriet Heyman, both have their own foundations. Jake runs the Kelson Foundation, which gave away $8.7 million in grants in 2023 to a mix of nonprofits, mainly in the areas of civic participation and conservation, while William’s similarly sized Loud Hound Foundation has a significant climate focus. Beyond doing their own philanthropy, Jake and William sit on the board of their parents’ Bay Area-based Crankstart Foundation, which last reported assets of nearly $4 billion.
Cliff Obrecht and Melanie Perkins
This husband-and-wife team founded the Australia-based graphic design software company Canva along with Cameron Adams. The couple have so far donated around $39 million to eradicate poverty around the world through the Canva Foundation. Meanwhile, through GiveDirectly, the trio have distributed $10 million in unconditional cash to nearly 13,000 Malawians.
Nicholas Perez
A prominent figure in his family’s real estate empire, Perez is also on a path to increasing prominence in the burgeoning South Florida philanthropy scene. The family has given away more than $200 million through the Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation, which focuses on arts, culture, education and community-building. Alongside his brother J.P. and sister Christina, Pérez is deeply involved in the foundation’s work, handling the foundation’s environmental investments.
Rihanna
Robyn Rihanna Fenty is now worth around $1.4 billion according to Forbes, making her one of the world’s wealthiest musicians. The Grammy award winner’s music earnings are only a fraction of her total wealth, though, with the bulk of her fortune coming from her beauty and lingerie brands. Rihanna has long raised money for causes she cares about, including children with terminal illnesses, education, clean water and sanitation, and disaster relief. In 2012, she founded the Clara Lionel Foundation, which focuses on climate resilience and health access, among other causes, in the Caribbean, Africa, and the U.S. South.
Austin Russell
In 2020, Stanford dropout Austin Russell became a billionaire at the age of 25, and a year later, he made waves with a $70 million contribution to the Central Florida Foundation. Russell’s company Luminar produces sensors used in autonomous cars, and with backing from Peter Thiel, the business thrived and went public in 2020. While Russell’s philanthropy focuses on education, community development and supporting underprivileged youth, he also gave $4 million to one of Jimmy Donaldson’s giving efforts, Team Seas. In 2022, Russell was linked to a Russian oligarch in the latter’s abortive bid to buy Forbes Media.
Florence Vasser Seydel
Born to environmentalists Laura Turner Seydel and Rutherford Seydel, Vasser Seydel is a granddaughter of media billionaire and Giving Pledge signatory Ted Turner. She serves as a director, trustee and the first chairperson of the family’s Turner 3rd Generation Board, and is on the board of her family’s Turner Foundation. She is also the president of the Oxygen Project, where she rallies scientists, NGOs and industry leaders to raise public awareness of deep seabed mining. If much of Ted Turner’s estimated $2.8 billion fortune goes to philanthropy, we’ll likely see even more opportunities for the Turner Foundation’s third-generation leaders to make their mark.
Jeffrey and John Sobrato
The two brothers are in the third generation of the Sobratos, who have built a multibillion-dollar fortune through real estate in Silicon Valley and are among the region’s most active philanthropic families. Jeff plays a hands-on role in the family business, and his interests include impact investing in the alternative protein space and nfluencing policy with a 501c4 called Food Solutions Action. In addition to food and nutrition, he also backs social impact films. John, who used to be a high school teacher in east San Jose, is the director of impact and learning at Sobrato Philanthropies, working across all of the foundation’s issue areas.
Nika Soon-Shiong
Nika Soon-Shiong is the daughter of billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, the transplant surgeon and businessman who owns the L.A. Times. The elder Soon-Shiong focuses his giving on the healthcare system. It’s unclear what direction Nika Soon-Shiong will take as a philanthropist, but elements of her background give us a major clue. She researched universal basic income as a doctoral student at Oxford University and advocated for it at the World Bank Group as a consultant. She’s also the executive director of the Fund for Guaranteed Income. Sensing a pattern?
Alex Soros
In 2023, George Soros selected his son Alex to chair the Open Society Foundations. The elder Soros, now in his nineties, has donated over half of his fortune to the grantmaker — that’s more than $32 billion, of which roughly half has already been disbursed. Prior to that, the younger Soros had established his own Alex Soros Foundation. His new gig at the head of one of the foremost global democracy and human rights grantmakers positions Alex Soros among philanthropy’s most influential power brokers. At the same time, the often embattled and famously sprawling OSF now faces a double threat: rising authoritarianism overseas and a hostile government at home.
Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy
The app Snapchat has furnished the cofounders of Snap Inc., Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, with fortunes that Forbes respectively estimates at around $2.5 billion and $2 billion. In 2017, the year of their company’s IPO, the business partners established the Snap Foundation, to which both pledged to donate 13 million shares of their stock in the company over the next 15 to 20 years. The grantmaker focuses on underrepresented youth in Los Angeles, where Snap is based. Also in 2017, Spiegel formed the Spiegel Family Fund, which backs the arts, education, housing and human rights.
Taylor Swift
The 14-time Grammy award winner’s Eras Tour took her to 83 shows across 30 cities in 12 months, padding her fortune to some $1.6 billion by Forbes’ current estimate. While she hasn’t yet created a foundation, the Taylor Swift’s philanthropy has already been wide ranging. She has given more than $1 million for disaster relief in parts of Tennessee, her adopted home state, as well as $4 million to build a music education center in Nashville. Another gift went to the LGBTQ rights group GLAAD, and she made a sizable donation to actress Mariska Hargitay’s Joyful Heart Foundation in 2017 to support survivors of sexual assault. She has also backed children’s hospitals and cancer research.
Cari Tuna
A former Wall Street Journal reporter, Tuna cofounded Good Ventures and is one of the main funders of Open Philanthropy along with her husband, Dustin Moskovitz. Moskovitz, whose fortune Forbes pegs at around $15 billion and is only 40 years old himself, was a co-founder and “marathon coder” at Facebook. Tuna and Moskovitz have been among the top megadonor proponents of effective altruism, working with the EA-oriented nonprofit GiveWell to rank and recommend charities to support. A recent, nearly $2 billion gift from the couple to Good Ventures highlights just how much philanthropic cash is waiting in the wings.
Sam Vinal
A filmmaker turned philanthropic leader, Vinal now focuses on supporting grassroots movements and social change. As the president of the Radical Imagination Family Foundation since 2019, Vinal directs resources to organizations that advocate for self-determination and collective liberation. His work also includes involvement with progressive outfits like Solidaire Network and Grassroots International.
Lukas Walton
With a $37 billion fortune, Lukas Walton has emerged as a key philanthropic leader among the third generation of Waltons, focusing on addressing climate change and advancing green initiatives, along with other social causes. He’s taken active roles in the arenas of sustainable development, education and environmental conservation through his investment and grantmaking operation, Builders Vision, which came online in 2021. Builders Initiative, the larger operation’s grantmaking vehicle, has channeled hundreds of millions to nonprofits alongside its donor-advised fund.
Correction (4/11/25): A previous version of this article included incorrect information about Romy Drucker’s relationship with the Walton family. We regret the error.
