Stanley F. Druckenmiller has joined an elite but expanding group of billionaires who have stepped down from executive positions to devote more time and money to philanthropy.
Last year, Druckenmiller, a hedge fund manager worth an estimated $2.8 billion, transfered a quarter of his personal fortune – $700 million – to his family foundation.
Before the transfer, the foundation had assets of about $6.5 million, meaning that Druckenmiller’s contribution increased its net worth by more than 100 times. As a result, the Druckenmiller Foundation’s annual gift giving grew to about $26 million last year from $3.6 million in 2000.
The donation landed Druckenmiller at No. 1 on the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s ranking of largest individual charitable contributions in 2009. That year, Druckenmiller and his wife, Fiona, also donated $100 million to New York University’s Langone Medical Center to create a neuroscience institute.
Druckenmiller, 57, announced earlier this month that he plans to shut down his hedge fund, Duquesne Capital Management, which oversees $12 billion, to spend more time on charitable causes – chief among them the Harlem Children’s Zone, to which he donated $25 million in 2006. Druckenmiller has also given to Teach for America, Human Rights Watch, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Robin Hood Foundation, among others.