Facebook 's Mark Zuckerberg and his wife were the second-biggest charitable donors in the United States last year , appearing behind only billionaire Warren Buffett on a list of the nation 's most generous philanthropists . Zuckerberg , along with wife Priscilla Chan , gave roughly half a billion dollars ( $ 498.8 million ) to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation , according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy . The group released its annual Philanthropy 50 over the weekend . The Facebook founder and CEO was one of three tech-industry titans in the list 's top five . Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen was fourth , with $ 309 million in contributions , mostly to the Allen Institute for Brain Science . And Google co-founder Sergey Brin and wife Anne Wojcicki , co-founder of genetic-testing company 23andME , were fifth , putting $ 223 million into their Brin Wojcicki Foundation . Zuckerberg , whose net worth is probably somewhere around $ 12 billion despite a rocky start for Facebook 's stock , made his first big splash in the philanthropy space in 2010 , when he pledged $ 100 million to public schools in Newark , New Jersey . The Silicon Valley Community Foundation issues grants for a host of causes in the San Francisco area . In 2012 , its charitable causes ranged from programs to teach immigrants English , to groups providing food and shelter to the needy , to funds for victims of the California wildfires . Zuckerberg donated 18 million Facebook shares to the foundation in December . `` Together , we will look for areas in education and health to focus on next . I 'm hopeful we 'll be able to have as positive an impact in our next set of projects , '' Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page at the time . Allen 's institute is devoted to research on how the human brain works , particularly in regard to health and disease . It is a nonprofit medical research organization launched in 2003 and which Allen compares , in scope , to the Large Hadron Collider and the Human Genome Project . Brin and Wojcicki 's foundation donates to a number of causes which , in 2012 , included women 's and environmental issues and a foundation devoted to curbing poverty . The couple also donated nearly $ 33 million last year to the Michael J . Fox Foundation for Parkinson 's Research . Zuckerberg , 27 , and Brin , 39 , contributed to a trend noted by the chronicle -- and likely spurred by the emergence of the youth-oriented tech field . Three of the year 's top five donors were under 40 . The other , No . 3 on the list , was hedge-fund creator John Arnold , who is 38 , and his wife , Laura .
Zuckerberg and wife , John Arnold , gave about $ 500 million to a charitable foundation last year . Chronicle of Philanthropy releases its list of most generous givers in 2012 . Warren Buffett tops the list ; hedge-fund creator John Arnold and his wife , Laura , are second . Google 's Paul Allen , Chronicle of Philanthropy 's Warren Buffett and wife , Anne Wojcicki , round out the top five .