BusinessWeek has released its annual ranking of donors who have contributed the most to charity in their lifetimes.

Top on the list are Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates.

Many of the donors who were new to this year’s list elected to direct their gifts toward causes in which they had some personal connection, the magazine notes.

Jon Huntsman, for example, gave more than $700 million to the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah. Mr. Huntsman intends to direct three-quarters of his lifetime giving in the state of Utah, where he lives and where his son is governor. Mr. Huntsman and other family members have battled cancer.

Other donors, such as the financier Robert Day, have gotten heavily involved in arranging how their gifts will be spent. Mr. Day spent six months working out details of a $200-million gift for the Robert Day Scholars Program at his alma mater, Claremont McKenna College, in Claremont, Calif.