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In the Giving MoodRachael Larimore takes your questions about Slate's annual roster of top philanthropists.

Posted Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009, at 4:52 PM ET

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Rachael Larimore: That was one of the first things we noticed on the list, was the sheer number of bequests. I have to conclude that this is because of the recession. Without trying to sound flip or callous, the adage that "you can't take it with you" rings true here. Living donors, meanwhile, seem to have been scared off, perhaps, by the flailing economy. Donors might have decided to wait until their portfolios recovered before giving away large sums, or they might have decided to make smaller gifts that didn't qualify for our list.

I'm sure many of them do find it satisfying to give while they are alive, but the economic crisis has been frightening for everyone.

One note on Bill Gates. He has not made the list in recent years, but that does not mean that he's stopped doing his important philanthropic work. A few years we changed the way we counted, and we no longer list gifts that are payments on previous pledges. Doing so results in double counting. If we did, you can imagine that Gates and Warren Buffett, who made an otherwordly pledge of $43 billion, mostly to the Gates Foundation, would be atop the list every year.

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Slate 60: Is this really the 13th year? Can you describe a little about how it got started, the methodology, and any trends that have become clear during that time?

Rachael Larimore: Whew, quite a question. I'll try to be brief. In Slate's very first year, our founding editor, Michael Kinsley, read remarks from Ted Turner in which Turner suspected the wealthy of holding onto their wealth, rather than giving it away while they were alive, because they didn't want to lose their spot on the Forbes 400 list. Kinsley thought Slate should play on that vanity and inspire the superwealthy to be competitive about giving money away, so he created the Slate 60.

The methodology has evolved greatly. Since Slate was hoping to inspire the living, for the first few years, we did not count bequests. And we counted only gifts, not pledges. The downside of the latter criteria caused us to avoid counting a huge pledge that Bill Gates used to get his foundation going.

From there on, we started counting bequests and pledges, so that we did not ignore some truly remarkable acts of philanthropy.

As for trends, there are some things that always hold true: People love to give to universities and hospitals and arts organizations. People love to have buildings named after themselves.

We've also witnessed and tracked the rise of "venture philanthropy"--giving modeled on the "venture capital" philosophy. The survivors of the various tech and dot-com bubbles have taken prominent places on our list, and they tend to be more innovative than some older, more traditional donors.

I hope that answers your question.

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Central, N.J.: Where are the "largest" contributions the combined contributions of many "small" contributors?

Rachael Larimore: In terms of the Slate 60 we track gifts made by the largest contributors and focus on individuals, so all of our contributions are from single people and not many "small" contributors.

We do have donors that focus on making smaller contributions to many, many organizations. For example, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave away $235 million this year, but divvied it up among 1,200 different groups. He announces some of his recipients but not others. But he did say that some of his gifts went to Johns Hopkins for a children's hospital, a group that supports cancer research, and a foundation that works to fight poverty.

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Chicago: Would you happen know how what percentage goes to charities outside the country and how much benefits the non-profits in the U.S.?

Rachael Larimore: I don't know, I'm afraid. In terms of the Slate 60, we track gifts made BY American donors, but while we can usually track down the amount of giving they've done, they are sometimes reticent to talk about all of the groups to whom they give money.

I did just find a story from 2007 that said Americans gave away $300 billion to charitable causes in 2006, and religious organizations were the top recipient, followed by education.

Interestingly, that story pointed out that Americans and the British give away the most, in comparision with GDP. But I can't tell you how much of that goes overseas.

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Rachael Larimore: I'd like to thank everyone for joining the chat today. A few closing thoughts.

One, while we can quibble about where donors send their money or wonder about their motivations, it's important to remember that the amount of giving recorded on the Slate 60 is but a fraction of the charitable giving that Americans do each year, and that the generosity can be truly staggering.

As such, I always look forward to working on the Slate 60, to see what some of our "regulars" have been doing, charity-wise, for the past year, and to see what kinds of innovative ideas some of the younger billionaires have come up with.

Thanks for chatting today, and thanks for your interest in the Slate 60.