Who are Nancy and Rich Kinder? Richest Houston billionaires to donate 95% wealth — know all about them

Houston billionaires Nancy Kinder and Rich Kinder have announced that they will donate almost all of their fortune to charity, a news that has earned them the spotlight worldwide.

The billionaire couple have said that they will donate 95 per cent of their fortune, or nearly 10 billion, to charity focussed on local causes, including parks, education and arts among others.

In an interview with ABC13 Houston’s Melanie Lawson, Rich and Nancy Kinder confirmed that they will donate most of their $11 billion wealth to the city that has made them who they are today.

“Whatever wealth you accumulate is really the result of a lot of other people helping you along the way,” Rich Kinder said, adding that they wanted to make the world “a little better” than how they found it.

Who is Rich Kinder?

Nancy and Rich Kinder are the wealthiest residents of Houston. According to Forbes, their combined net worth amounts to $11.3 billion as of October 21, 2025.

Most of that money, they have said, will now go towards local causes.

Rich Kinder is the co-founder and executive chairman of Kinder Morgan, one of the largest energy infrastructure firms in the United States. The oil and gas pipeline major owns or operates 79,000 miles of pipeline.

Rich Kinder began his career as an attorney at the Enron Foundation, and served as the energy company's president and COO from 1996 to 1996.

In 1997, he resigned from the company and founded Kinder Morgan, where he was the CEO till 2015. He now serves as the executive chairman of the company.

Under his leadership, Kinder Morgan went from being a business started by two friends with 175 employees, to an energy giant with approximately 11,000 employees.

He receives a salary of $1 per year, reflecting his philanthropic view, and is the largest shareholder of Kinder Morgan. The billionaire earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Missouri and served in Vietnam as a Captain in the US Army.

Who is Nancy Kinder?

Rich Kinder married Nancy Kinder in 1997, the same year he founded Kinder Morgan.

The couple together also established the Kinder Foundation in 1997, where Rich Kinder is the chairman and oversees the vision and strategic leadership of the organisation’s major gifts.

On the other hand, Nancy Kinder serves as the President and CEO of the Kinder Foundation, which was started with a vision to provide major gifts to public causes with the intention of helping people lead healthy and rewarding lives.

Hailing from New Iberia, Louisiana, Nancy Kinder attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

She is also the founding chairperson of the nonprofit organisation Discovery Green Conservancy, which has developed an urban park in Houston.

Currently, she serves as Chairman of The Downtown Park Corp. and President of the Advisory Board of Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research.