7 Philanthropic Billionaires Who Contribute To Science

# T. Denny Sanford

T. Denny Sanford is the owner and founder of First Premier Bank and currently the CEO of United National Corp.  On November 2013, University of California, San Diego announced a $100 million gift from Sanford for the creation of the Sanford Stem Cell Clinal Center at UCSD, the second largest donation in the university's history.

His contributions doesn’t stop here, in February 2013 Physics Today reports that Sanford gave $70 million to a physics lab, which was renamed the Sanford Underground Research Facility site of the discovery of the solar neutrino problem.

 He gave financial aid to the State of South Dakota's Science and Technology Authority, to help secure a deep underground science and engineering laboratory at the former site of the Homestake Gold Mine.

Other major donations involved when T. Denny Sanford gave $100 million to create a breast cancer foundation in January 2009, in the memory of his mother, Edith Sanford who died of breast cancer when he was only four years old.

# Paul Allen

Paul Allen is an American philanthropist, investor and innovator, best known as the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation. As of December 2014, he was estimated to be the 55th richest person in the world, with an estimated wealth of $17.1 billion.

The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation was established in 1988 to administer a portion of Paul Allen’s philanthropic contributions. Between 1990-2014, the Foundation gave away more than $500 million to over 1,500 nonprofits.

Paul Allen has founded and provided support to many scientific endeavors, including, Allen Institute for Brain Science, which has got the donation of $500 million from Allen, making it his single largest philanthropic recipient.

 Paul Allen donated the seed money to build SETI’s radio telescope array, eventually contributing $30 million to the project. In 2014, Paul Allen pledged at least $100 million toward the fight to end the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa, making him one of the largest individual donors in the Ebola crisis.

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