In a 2006 letter to Microsoft's co-founder and his wife, Buffett outlined a long-term schedule that has him donating almost all of his fortune by giving 5 percent fewer shares each July, when compared to the previous year. Even though Buffett's gift schedule called for him to give the Gates Foundation 16.6 million Class B shares this year, down from 17.5 million shares last year, the value of each share gained 12.1 percent over the past 12 months, boosting the total value of the donation by more than $100 million above last year's level.
– Warren Buffett has beaten a personal record—and slipped down a place to fourth on the Forbes list of the world's richest people—with a gift of shares worth $2.8 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and several other charities, topping his record $2.6 billion giveaway last year. The Berkshire Hathaway CEO's fortune has now fallen from $65.9 billion down to $63.1 billion, and the 83-year-old plans to give away almost all of it. Buffett and Bill Gates helped found the Giving Pledge, which encourages billionaires to give their fortunes to charity, Bloomberg notes. More than 100 have signed up. "I will give 99%, but the other 1% is way more than enough," Buffett said in a speech to the Edison Electric Institute last month. "I have never given a dollar that caused me to give up something I wanted to buy." Under Buffett's long-term plan to give his billions away, the number of shares he gives to the Gates Foundation decreases a little each year, but their value has been going up and the value of his donations to the charity since 2006 now stands at $23.8 billion, CNBC finds.