Think About It. The Call. He plays bridge with Bill Gates while living in a “modest” Omaha neighborhood and threatening to “write a book on how to get by on $500 million.” If you got the call from Warren Buffett you probably know why. But don’t feel bad. Neither did Charles Johnson, Pam Omidyar, Jeffrey Carlton, Ann Wojcicki and Michael Bloomberg, even though they each gave more than $100,000 to charity last year.
Philanthropy turns out to be a controversial subject. As my etymologically minded granddaughters Kelli and Elisabeth will tell you, the word doesn’t refer to money, but simply “the love of humanity”. If that prompts great giving, it’s fine with me. The trouble comes when the carpers decry the motivations of the givers placing billions in their own foundations to lower personal taxes. Others complain that small charities don’t get their share. Some even feel the donor should not find pleasure in the gift. Altruism, it would seem, should be the operative principal. Add to that the fear that large offerings to worthy causes only discourage the giving by less affluent donors. My thought is that there will always be those joyfully giving modestly from their poverty. Consider the Widow’s Mite.
In the twentieth century there appears to have been created a distinction between charity and philanthropy. Charity being gifts to the needy. Philanthropy providing resources for solving these endemic ills at the root. Think of teaching a person to fish. Of course these concepts often overlap, and to that I say Hooray!
The happy truth is the U.S. is more generous than all other parts of the globe, giving about $300 billion a year. Notice that the 50 most generous donors accounted for $7.7 Billion in 2014.
Think it’s easy to give money away? According to the New York Times May 30th, a Texas hedge fund manager provided $50,000 to Northwestern students for a course on philanthropy. Their job? Find, investigate and scrutinize non-profits for the purpose of giving a portion of that money. Naturally they had differences regarding the choices of recipients. Announcing that it was arrogant for students to attempt convincing others of their views, the liberal donor withdrew his already conservative funding. Some thought he was the arrogant one. His role has been replaced by others and has spread to other schools, whose classes apparently still find it a difficult task to sort out the worthy causes.
Mark Zuckerberg tops the list of U.S billionaires this year exceeding the likes of Gates, Buffett, Bloomberg and various Waltons of Wal-Mart. The CEO of Berkshire-Hathaway threatened to write his book if fellow billionaires did not accept the challenge shared by Bill and Melinda Gates to give away half their worth now or pledge to do it in their final bequest. I would be happy to accept the Buffett Challenge and get by on only a half billion dollars. The Giving Pledge List Reaches $365 Billion this year with 139 signing. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get The Call. Think About It.
Take the pledge. Joe Mooney’s 60 year-old view on getting by.