Donald Trump has made $7.8 million in charitable donations since the early 1980s, but an investigation by The Washington Post has been unable to verify that he gave millions more that he promised.
Trump promised to give away the proceeds of Trump University. He promised to donate the salary he earned from The Apprentice. He promised to give personal donations to the charities chosen by contestants on Celebrity Apprentice. He promised to donate $250,000 to a charity helping Israeli soldiers and veterans.
Together, those pledges would have increased Trump's lifetime giving by millions of dollars. But investigators have been unable to verify that he followed through on any of them.
It is impossible to know for certain what Trump has given to charity because he has declined to release his tax returns.
After calling more than 420 charities with some connection to Trump, The Post found only one personal gift from Trump between 2008 and the spring of 2016: A gift of less than $10,000 to the Police Athletic League of New York City, in 2009.
The charity that has received the most money from Trump -- $5.5 million of the $7.8 million he has provably given -- appears to be the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which has received $9.3 million from other people.
New findings show that the largest-ever gift made by the Trump Foundation -- $264,631 -- was used to renovate a fountain outside the windows of Trump's Plaza Hotel.
Its smallest-ever gift, for $7, was paid to the Boy Scouts in 1989, at a time when it cost $7 to register a new Scout. Trump's oldest son was 11 at the time. Trump did not respond to a question about whether the money paid to register him.
In interviews this year, Trump has declined to supply details about his giving, saying if charities knew what he had donated, they would badger him to give more.
"I give mostly to a lot of different groups," Trump said in one interview, though he declined to give any names: "I'd like to keep it private."
Trump has donated $1.1 million in the last six months. That includes the revenue from a televised fundraiser for veterans in January. In that broadcast, Trump said he'd personally donated to the cause: "Donald Trump gave $1 million," he said.
Trump didn't give the $1 million until weeks later, after media outlets asked which organization had received the money. Trump then gave it all to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, which helps families of fallen Marines.
In August, Trump gave $100,000 to a church near Baton Rouge. He sent the check after visiting the church during a tour of flood-ravaged areas.
But at other times, Trump seemed to make light of others' expectations about his generosity.
In 1997, for instance, he was "principal for a day" at a public school in an impoverished area of the Bronx. The chess team was holding a bake sale and was $5,000 short of what they needed to travel to a tournament.
"He handed them a fake million-dollar bill," said David MacEnulty, a teacher and the chess team's coach.
Later, Trump gave the team $200 and left.
The happy ending, MacEnulty said, was that a woman read about the $200 gift in The New York Times, called the school and donated the $5,000.
"I am ashamed to be the same species as this man," MacEnulty recalled the woman saying.
Despite questions about his charitable giving, it remains an important part of the Trump image. When Trump and Clinton appeared together on Oct. 20 in Manhattan at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation dinner, which benefits Catholic charities, the program for that event used Trump's official biography taken from the Trump University website:
"Mr. Trump is the archetypal businessman, a deal maker without peer and an ardent philanthropist."
A Section on 10/31/2016