Buffett donates $1.5 billion

Warren Buffett's 2009 donations to four charitable foundations are worth $1.51 billion, a new report today showed, continuing his pledge to donate most of his fortune to charity.

That's the smallest dollar amount since he began the donations in 2006 because the value of the donated shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. stock has declined in the past year. It's the second year that the value of the shares is down.

Buffett's donations follow a formula that calculates the number of shares for each foundation, rather than the dollar amount to be donated.

His donations were worth $1.93 billion in 2006, $2.12 billion in 2007 and $1.9 billion in 2008. The donations were in the form of Class B Berkshire shares, which traded at $2,924 each on Monday, the day Buffett donated them. He makes the donations about the same time each year.

This year, as usual, the largest donation went to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, $1.25 billion, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Buffett has said he picked the foundation, formed by Microsoft Corp.'s founder and his wife, because it has the capacity to use the billions to tackle world health, poverty and economic issues that he considers important.

The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named after his late wife, received $125.3 million worth of stock. Foundations run by his three children, Susan, Howard and Peter, received $43.9 million each. The four foundations support a wide range of social improvement causes.

After the donations, Buffett owns Berkshire stock worth $36 billion.