Susan Dell is the person deciding where most of the Dell family's charitable money goes. She and her husband, Michael Dell, have given away about $10 billion of his roughly $232 billion fortune. Michael is the sixth-richest man in the world, but on philanthropy, Susan is calling a lot of the shots.
She is the co-founder and chair of the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, which the couple established in 1999. The organization manages more than 800 projects worldwide each year. Its work stretches across the U.S., Africa, India, Israel, and their home state of Texas, where the couple lives on a sprawling 33,000-square-foot estate.
Susan Dell's Foundation Focus: Education, Health Care, and Jobs
The foundation puts its money into three main areas: education, jobs and livelihood, and health. These are causes Susan has cared about since she was a child.
Her father was a surgical oncologist, and the foundation says he "sparked her lifelong passion for health." That personal history helps explain why health care is one of her biggest bets. It is not a cause she picked up later in life — it runs back to her family.
The other two focus areas, education and jobs, round out a giving strategy built around children and opportunity. The headline point is simple: the biggest bets are on kids, health care, and UT Austin.
Why the Dells' Giving Strategy Matters
Most people know Michael Dell as the tech billionaire who built a computer empire. Fewer know that his wife is the one steering the family's charitable operation. That matters because $10 billion is not a small sum — it is money that shapes schools, clinics, and job programs across several countries.
Running more than 800 projects a year is a serious operation. It means the foundation is not writing one big check and walking away. It is managing a large portfolio of work on the ground, in Texas and far beyond it.
The Texas connection is worth noting. The couple lives in the state, and their giving stays close to home even as it reaches Africa, India, and Israel. For readers in Texas, that means the Dells' money is likely touching local institutions and programs, not just overseas ones.
Our Take: Susan Dell Deserves the Spotlight
In our view, this story is a useful correction to how we usually talk about billionaire giving. We tend to credit the person whose name is on the fortune. Here, the name on the foundation is both of theirs, but the chair is Susan — and the causes reflect her history, especially her father's work in cancer care.
To put it plainly, the Dells' philanthropy is a family project, and Susan is running it. That is the fact readers should take away. The $10 billion figure gets the headlines, but the decisions behind it come from a person with a clear set of priorities: children, health, and education.
What this means for readers is straightforward. If you care about how large fortunes get spent on public good, watch what the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation funds in your community. The money is real, the operation is large, and the person steering it is Susan Dell.
