Inside 3 'Big Bets' for Social Change

John Paulson’s $400 million gift to Harvard earlier this year touched off a new chorus of an old complaint: Why don’t the rich make mega-gifts to charities that help the truly needy?

That, in simple terms, is the question at the heart of new research by Bridgespan, the nonprofit consultant that works with both philanthropists and charities. Bridgespan’s data confirms the conventional wisdom that few big gifts go to social change; reviewing publicly announced commitments of $10 million or more from 2000 to 2012, it found only a fifth of the total dollars each year went to charities working in education, the environment, health, social services or similar fields.