Pickens and employees of his BP Capital LLC donated $7 million to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. The "Chronicle of Philanthropy" lists Pickens as among its largest charitable givers 2005 and 2006. He has donated nearly a half a billion dollars to philanthropic causes during his career. In 2005 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Pickens together with his then-wife Madeleine, chartered airplanes to transport dogs rescued from the floodwaters in New Orleans. On November 6, 2006, Pickens donated $5 million toward the construction of Texas Woman's University's T. Boone Pickens Institute of Health Sciences-Dallas Center.