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Zuckerbergs second-most generous donors of 2012

The Facebook chief executive and his wife of nine months made one giant donation at the end of 2012. The gift was big enough to put them atop the list of most generous donors.

Jennifer Van Grove Former Senior Writer / News
Jennifer Van Grove covered the social beat for CNET. She loves Boo the dog, CrossFit, and eating vegan. Her jokes are often in poor taste, but her articles are not.
Jennifer Van Grove
James Martin/CNET

A $500 million donation to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation in December was enough to make power-couple Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan the second-most generous donors of the year.

The Facebook chief executive and his bride of less than a year -- the couple wedded in May immediately following Facebook's fiasco of an initial public offering -- announced, on Facebook, that they donated 18 million Facebook shares to the Silicon Valley foundation to finance education and health programs.

The sizable giveaway, valued at around $498.8 million, was enough to put the Zuckerbergs in second place on The Chronicle of Philanthropy's list of the 50 most generous donors of 2012.

Warren Buffett, the iconic 82-year-old investor, took the top spot and made everyone else look like tightwads. He donated roughly $3.1 billion during 2012, according to the publication.

Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin and his wife Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of 23andMe, also topped the list of most generous people in 2012. The techie couple donated about $223 million in total last year, though most of the funds went to their own foundation.

[via FastCompany]