{"id":425248,"date":"2026-08-06T07:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T07:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/425248\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T07:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T07:58:07","slug":"california-mints-the-most-billionaires-an-index-ranks-it-last-on-the-freedom-to-give-to-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/425248\/","title":{"rendered":"California mints the most billionaires. An index ranks it last on the freedom to give to charity"},"content":{"rendered":"

California is home to more billionaires than any other state: 246 of them to be exact, according to an April report<\/a> by Oxfam. It\u2019s where MacKenzie Scott, Jensen Huang, and Mark Zuckerberg have funneled billions into charitable causes.<\/p>\n

Yet somehow it\u2019s actually the worst state in the country to be a donor, according to an index by Philanthropy Roundtable. The group, a right-of-center association that advocates for fewer regulatory restrictions on donors and charities, ranks all 50 U.S. states based on how friendly their laws are to charitable giving and nonprofit activity. And California came in dead last with a score of 2.73 out of 10, which is based on the state\u2019s broad economic and tax climate, regulatory burdens charities face in registering and reporting, and the legal protections and tax incentives available to donors. On the report\u2019s donor confidence measure, which tracks tax treatment, donor privacy, and legal protections for donor intent, California scored 0.88, the lowest in the nation by a wide margin.<\/p>\n

By comparison, Montana tops the list with a score of 8 out of 10, based on its low regulatory barriers for charities, strong donor protections, and a favorable broad economic policy. Report authors Matthew Mitchell and Jack Salmon note \u201clarge coastal states tend to score worse on the index while Mountain West states tend to score better.\u201d Meanwhile, the five highest-ranked states (Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, and Indiana) are small and largely rural. The bottom five (California, New Jersey, Washington, Connecticut, and Illinois) are among the country\u2019s largest and wealthiest, and all but Illinois is coastal.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more is there are 63 charities per billion dollars of GDP among the bottom five states in the index, but the top five states have 122 charities by the same measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis underscores the point that freedom in the philanthropic sphere is not a mere abstraction,\u201d the authors wrote. \u201cThese trends demonstrate that more charity freedom and stronger incentives for philanthropy are associated with more philanthropic activity, having a positive impact on the way we live, work, and care for one another in communities across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

How does California rank last when there are so many billionaires there?<\/p>\n

California requires charities to register<\/a> to solicit donations, undergo audits<\/a> once revenue tops $2 million, and pay some of the steepest fees in the country, including a top annual reporting fee of $1,200<\/a> and a $500 paid-solicitor fee<\/a>. The state offers no general sales tax exemption for charities, no legal standing for donors to enforce their intent, and only what the report calls \u201cvery weak\u201d protections for restricted gifts and endowments.<\/p>\n

Brittnie Panetta<\/a>, a California-based attorney who cofounded and spent more than a decade helping run a nonprofit, said the state\u2019s requirements land hardest on the organizations least equipped to handle them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia has a large charitable regulatory structure, and the administrative burden can be significant for smaller nonprofits,\u201d she said. \u201cEverything from registration, annual reporting, and ongoing compliance needs resources that many startups don\u2019t have quite yet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

While bigger organizations have legal and accounting teams to manage those obligations, she said, smaller charities can struggle with \u201ccompliance costs can divert funds from their mission [and] discourage new organizations from forming.\u201d<\/p>\n

That disparity complicates the picture for a state defined by its megadonors. A billionaire\u2019s foundation absorbs compliance as a routine cost, but a volunteer-run charity may not.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEach additional filing or reporting requirement is going to be exponentially more expensive for smaller nonprofits, as they rely on volunteers and limited staff,\u201d Panetta said. \u201cSo while the regulatory structure seems the same, the practical impact is not, by any means.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be sure, Panetta said the rules and regulations aren\u2019t meant to be hostile, but rather to \u201cpromote public trust and accountability,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRequiring charities to disclose financial information and comply with reporting obligations helps regulators identify fraud and misuse of assets,\u201d she added. \u201cThere has to be a balance between preventing abuse and avoiding any unnecessary barriers to charitable giving.\u201d<\/p>\n

California\u2019s own compliance system has struggled to keep up. More than 30,000 nonprofits were flagged as noncompliant at an August 2025 hearing, The Nonprofit Times reported<\/a>, and the state paused new delinquency designations while it overhauls an overwhelmed registration portal.<\/p>\n

Some billionaire donors have even complained about how philanthropy can be hard despite the number shown in their bank account. Elon Musk, who moved from California to Texas a few years ago, told the WTF podcast last year it\u2019s \u201cvery difficult to give away money well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As he put it: \u201cIt\u2019s very easy to give money away to get the appearance of goodness. It is very difficult to give money away for the reality of goodness.\u201d To be sure, Musk\u2019s complaint was moreso about deploying money effectively, not about compliance costs. But it\u2019s worth noting where he landed: Texas ranks 6th on the same index, 44 spots above the state he left.<\/p>\n

All that being said, some of the regulations appear to not have phased California\u2019s billionaire donor class that much.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Scott has directed more than $461 million to California public education institutions since 2021, according to<\/a> EdSource. Nvidia<\/a> CEO Jensen Huang and his wife, Lori, gave $75 million<\/a> to Vanderbilt University for its art, architecture, and design San Francisco campus, and Meta<\/a> CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have committed more than $7 billion<\/a> through their Redwood City-based Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The rules the index penalizes, in other words, haven\u2019t stopped the country\u2019s biggest donors from giving in California. They\u2019ve just made it harder for everyone else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California is home to more billionaires than any other state: 246 of them to be exact, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,169556,60649,2702,169557,3469,9560],"class_list":["post-425248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-charitable-donations","tag-charitable-giving","tag-charity","tag-charity-donations","tag-philanthropy","tag-wealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}