Celebrities, world leaders among most powerful philanthropists

Singer Jennifer Lopez and International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde topped Forbes magazine’s list of Most Powerful Female Philanthropists in 2012. Forbes said the list comes from a survey of the philanthropic work of 2012′s most powerful women who have donated millions of dollars in art, helped innumerable individuals through international humanitarian organizations and raised consciousness (and cash) for causes they value. The list includes Helen Clark who oversees the United Nations Development Program’s $5 billion annual budget; Drew Gilpin Faust who was named the first female president of Harvard in 2007; Angelina Jolie of the Jolie-Pitt Foundation that donated millions to causes, including Doctors without Borders, the Global Health Committee, and $100,000 in June to the UNHCR to assist Syrian refugees; Solina Chau who directs the $8.2 billion Li Ka Shing Foundation and the “third son” of La Ka Shing, the richest man in Asia; Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, the President and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, who oversees up to $400 million grants a year, and; Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen who is also a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), credited with planting over 500,000 trees in Brazil.

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