Tag Archives: philanthropy

Money, Money, Money

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The O’Jays > Abba, but I digress.

I dig this story, “Gift to help cover tuition for students in lab medicine” for a few reasons. Mostly because the donors wanted to remain anonymous. Such a refreshing choice in this “look at me” day and age. I also like how targeted and thought out the gift is. There will surely be positive ripple effects. And of course, the recipients’ gratitude is heartwarming.

Then there’s this. “Michael and Susan Dell donate $6.25 billion to encourage families to claim ‘Trump Accounts’”. Not anonymous, and a very unfortunate name, but a staggering amount that compensates for both of those things.

Both are interesting in the context of this The Nation pod, “Liberal Philanthropy and the Fight for Democracy“. Sentence-long summary, “As powerbrokers of the elite, liberal philanthropists are averse to challenging ‘the systems that spawned them.'” One does not have to be as far left as the typical The Nation reader/listener to conclude that we’re far too dependent on the capriciousness (and ego) of the oligarchy for the infrastructure and safety nets we desperately need. What we need is the the dependability of a more progressive tax structure.

Yours truly just sold some AAPL purchased in 2011. The initial investment was small, but the shares appreciated over 2,000% in the fourteen years, resulting in a large sum. Which I will now gift to several nonprofits.

In revealing that, I’ve violated my fave philanthropic move, remaining anonymous. And, I’ve also sidestepped considerable capital gain taxes.

I can live with those demerits because I do not aspire to be in any pantheon of modern-day philanthropists. My aim is simpler. It’s to honor the memory of those who’ve been generous with me and to transmute the incredible luck I’ve had as an investor into tangible contributions to the common good.

So I Mighta’ Got It A Little Wrong

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Long after I’m gone, when historians gather to rank PressingPause’s Top Ten Most Knuckleheaded posts, a very recent one will, in all likelihood*, rise to the top.

I said Melinda Gates was so done with Bill that she was also cutting bait with the male gender.

Then, this. ‘Gender equality is not a zero-sum game’: Men’s think-tank leader receives $20M from Melinda Gates.

Anyone can swing and miss. But it takes special talent to swing, miss, fall down, and tear ligaments in both ankles.

*had to use a tentative phrase here since I’m still alive, writing, and getting stuff wrong

Maybe The Future Is Okay

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Boy’s hot cocoa stand in southwest Spokane has raised $300 to help people who are homeless.

In unrelated news, except for the fact it’s another young person, I like this picture of a girl and Rafael Devers who recently signed an 11 year, $331m extension (no wonder he’s smiling) for two reasons. She has the exact right color of hair and she has mastered the selfie+, something I’m terrible at.

A Different Kind of Billionaire

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30-year-old crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried drives a Corolla and sleeps on a beanbag. 

In semi-related news, India’s Guatam Adani has moved into the world’s top ten richest people with a networth of over $100 billion. 

Sentence to ponder, “Mr. Adani’s net worth topped $100 billion on Monday, up from $57 billion a year ago.” 

How To Stay Together

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My amazing playwriting aside, the Jeff Bezos/MacKenzie Scott divorce is an illuminating tale for people committing to one another for the long haul.

The conventional wisdom is that a lack of money and related money fights explain why so many relationships fail. That’s certainly true, but not the whole story. Even people with money can have devastating money disagreements because everyone has a unique money history and no two people will ever think about it the same way.

The bottom line. Couples don’t explore their “money compatibility” nearly carefully enough in the early stages of their relationships. The key is to figure out whether you and your partner are more similar in your thinking about saving, spending, gifting, and investing than not. No, that’s not particularly sexy, but do you want to measure your relationship by decades or not?

One little complication, by which I mean, huge complication. People change over time. Maybe MacKenzie didn’t know Jeff wanted to be the richest person in the world because he may not have wanted to be until his first or one hundredth billion.

What to do about the unknown? Anticipate that your thinking about money will change over time, not radically, but moderately. Similarly, anticipate that your partner’s thinking will change too. Meaning “money compatibility” is always a work-in-progress. Talk about saving, spending, gifting, and investing with some regularity or run the risk of serious differences creating dangerous cracks in the foundation of your relationship.

A One Act Play

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The setting: Jeff Bezos’s and MacKenzie Scott’s Medina, WA kitchen. After working together to make Kraft macaroni and cheese with hot dogs, they serve themselves, grab two cans of Mountain Dew, and sit down at their formica dinner table. It’s one of their last dinners together as a married couple. A few days following this meal, they decide to pull the plug on their marriage. 

Jeff: Mac and cheese with dogs never gets old. [laughs uncontrollably] 

MacKenzie: No, it doesn’t. [inner voice. . . but your laugh has sure started to] 

Jeff: What did you do today?

MacKenzie: I spent most of it journaling. Which helped me realize I don’t want to help you turn Amazon into the world’s retail store anymore. I think $182 billion is enough money. I want to make the world a better place through writing and giving my share of our money away.

[All the while, Jeff texts Lauren Sanchez under the table.]

MacKenzie: [Softly, sadly, and with a deep sense of resignation.] Did you hear me?

Jeff: Yes, you said you want to help me make Amazon into the world’s retail store. 

[MacKenzie stares at Jeff in silence]

Jeff: [Head in his lap.] Can you pass the applesauce? 

 

My Person Of The Year

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A New York Times primer for anyone who doesn’t know MacKenzie Scott, the eighteenth wealthiest person in the world.

“Ms. Scott, who was formerly married to the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, has pledged to give away most of her wealth. Her shares in Amazon were valued at about $38 billion last year but would have gained value during the coronavirus pandemic.”

Scott isn’t letting the pandemic stop her from making true on her pledge. Quite the opposite. Last week she revealed she was “the one behind the donations to dozens of colleges and universities, part of nearly $4.2 billion she had given to 384 organizations in the last four months.”

As impressive as the amount Scott’s given away is is how her team did it.

“The money came after weeks or months of hush-hush conversations in which Ms. Scott’s representatives reached out to college presidents to interview them about their missions, several of the presidents said on Wednesday. When they learned who was behind the effort, it was a surprise to them, too. But it could not have come at a better time — when the pandemic was hitting their student bodies hard, they said.

‘I was stunned,’ Ruth Simmons, president of Prairie View A&M University, a historically Black college in Prairie View, Texas, said of learning that Ms. Scott was giving $50 million, the biggest gift the university had ever received. She thought she had misheard and the caller had to repeat the number: ‘five-zero.'”

Scott is the antithesis of most ultra wealthy philanthropists who almost always give to their alma maters, most of which are already flush with nine or ten figure endowments.

“Ms. Scott’s latest gifts bring her charity to almost $6 billion this year, an extraordinary amount. In another unorthodox touch, she announced them in a Medium post on Tuesday. ‘This pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling,’ she wrote. ‘Economic losses and health outcomes alike have been worse for women, for people of color, and for people living in poverty.'”

Experts on philanthropy were surprised to see Scott associate herself with institutions that were “much more humble and, indeed, needy.”

“To these institutions, a $20 million donation was the equivalent of several times that to a Harvard or Yale, and could have a disproportionate impact.

‘One of the things that’s so incredible about this massive grouping of gifts is that she does not have a personal connection to most, if any, of these universities,’ said Kestrel Linder, chief executive of GiveCampus, a fund-raising platform that works with colleges and universities.

Ms. Scott made gifts to more than a dozen historically Black colleges and universities, as well as community and technical colleges and schools serving Native Americans, women, urban and rural students.”

Dare to be different. And hella generous.

Being A Billionaire Is Hard

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No, I don’t have first hand experience, I’m basing that conclusion on this headline.

Jeff Bezos is getting slammed for his donation of $690,000 to the Australian wildfire recovery, which is less than he made every 5 minutes in 2018.

The critics are forgetting that Bezos went through a divorce last year, so in 2019, it probably took a lot more time, maybe 7-8 minutes of work.

I wonder how many of the critics have given to the recovery.

One woman said she raised nearly twice what Amazon pledged by selling nude photos online.

To which I have no comment.

Abolish Billionaires?

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There are about 2,200 billionaires in the world, about one-fourth of those are U.S. citizens.

Farhad Manjoo recently wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times that engendered more than 1,500 comments. Most simply, he argued, we should abolish billionaires through much higher taxes and related policies.

When it comes to billionaires, I’m of a mixed mind. On the one hand, given rising inequality, I’m surprised more people aren’t agitating against members of the three -comma club. Not just writing commentaries, but taking to the streets Occupy Wall Street style.

On the other hand, as the philosopher Peter Singer points out, some billionaires are giving away the bulk of their wealth to philanthropy. Bill Gates, in particular, plans to give away 99.6% of the cash money I paid him back in the day for successive versions of Microsoft Office.

Of course, as Manjoo points out, we have to analyze whether the billionaires’ charitable giving is having positive effects or not. Anand Giridharadas style. As Manjoo explains, Giridharadas argues that many billionaires approach philanthropy as a kind of branding exercise to maintain a system in which they get to keep their billions. Especially when they put their largess into politics.

“. . . whether it’s Howard Schultz or Michael Bloomberg or Sheldon Adelson, whether it’s for your team or the other — you should see the plan for what it is: an effort to gain some leverage over the political system, a scheme to short-circuit the revolution and blunt the advancing pitchforks.”

Gates might be an outlier, but his giving is so exemplary, I’m less inclined to order a pitchfork from that billionaire with the online superstore.