Beneficiaries: Arts, human services, public affairs, and other causes

Donor’s background: Mr. Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, founded the Bloomberg financial-data and news-service company.

Mr. Bloomberg, 69, gave a total of nearly $311.3-million to 1,185 nonprofits that support the arts, human services, public affairs, and other causes.

Among the groups he supported in 2011: Alliance for the Arts, in New York; American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, in New York; DC Central Kitchen, in Washington; the Global Road Safety Partnership, in Geneva; Harlem Children’s Zone, in New York; League for the Hard of Hearing, in New York; Mercy Corps, in Portland, Ore.; Mental Health America of Georgia, in Atlanta; New York Landmarks Conservancy; Playwrights Horizons, in New York; Rescue Mission of Trenton, in New Jersey; Save the Children, Westport, Conn.; Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, in Los Angeles; the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Embarq: the World Resources Institute Center for Sustainable Transport, in Washington; and numerous other nonprofits in New York and elsewhere.

—Maria Di Mento

View more profiles of donors who gave the most in 2011.