AP — For the second year in a row, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg gave the most to charitable causes, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s exclusive Philanthropy 50 list of the Americans who donated the largest sums to nonprofits last year.

In 2024, he gave a total of $3.7 billion to support arts, education, the environment, public-health groups, and programs aimed at improving city governments. He gives directly to charities and through his Bloomberg Philanthropies, which last year awarded a $1 billion grant to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, to make medical school free and to provide financial aid to nursing and public health students.

“I’ve never understood people who wait until they die to give away their wealth. Why deny yourself the satisfaction?” he wrote in an email to the Chronicle. “I’ve been very lucky, and I’m determined to do what I can to open doors for others and to leave a better world for my children and grandchildren.”

Bloomberg was one of six donors who gave $1 billion or more in 2024. The others were Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin (No. 2), Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell and his wife, Susan Dell (No. 3), investor Warren Buffett (No. 4), Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, physician Priscilla Chan (No. 5), and retired professor Ruth Gottesman (No. 6).

The majority of those gifts went to foundations and donor-advised funds that support causes including education, economic mobility, social justice, and scientific research. Gottesman, like Bloomberg, gave to make medical school free. She donated $1 billion to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Together the 50 donors on the list contributed a........

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