Number One Most Generous Donor for 2011 Died in 2006

Margaret Cargill holds the number one spot on The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual list of America’s 50 most generous donors. Margaret tops the list with a $6 million bequest, but she passed away in 2006, so how could this be? Her estate plan that allowed for this to happen is briefly described below:

Ms. Cargill died at 85 in 2006 and she left half of her shares of Cargill Stock to the Anne Ray Charitable Trust, and half to the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation. The two nonprofits are set to receive around $6 billion in bequests when all is said and done.

Cargill is still a privately held company so the trust could not liquidate the private Cargill stock at first. Last year though, the conglomerate sold its 64% stake in a publicly traded business, the Mosaic Company. Upon this sale, officials at the nonprofit could then exchange the private Cargill stock for public Mosaic stock, which will eventually translate to the $6 billion or more for each nonprofit. The foundation officials sold some of the Mosaic shares to receive about $2.8 billion of the bequest. The nonprofits still own around 65 million Mosaic shares but cannot sell them until May of next year. Once they sell those, they should be able to receive their bequests in full.

See Brian Solomon, This Year’s Most Generous Billionaire Philanthropist Has Been Dead Since 2006, Forbes, Feb. 6, 2012.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.)) for bringing this article to my attention.