Mega-billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates have started a new chapter in philanthropy with the sheer volume of their generosity. There’s reason to hope that the gifts will have an exaggerated impact, stimulating others to follow a pathway of giving, and bringing corporate practicality to the task of making the world a better place.
Gates and Buffett are the two richest men in the country as measured by personal wealth. Gates is estimated to be worth $50 billion and Buffett, $44 billion.
They appear on BusinessWeek’s list of 50 most generous philanthropists with Intel co-founder Gordon Moore and his wife, Betty, who gave $7 billion in 2001-05; investor George Soros, $2.4 billion; Eli and Edyth Broad, SunAmerica and KB Home founder, $1.5 billion; and James and Virginia Stowers, American Century founder, $1.2 billion.
Buffett has announced he’s funneling $30 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. At $1.5 billion a year, that will more than double the foundation’s financial base. Buffett’s contribution will dwarf the donations of the nation’s past philanthropists. Steel and railroad magnate Andrew Carnegie, whose money built thousands of libraries and whose Carnegie Corp. remains an active charity, gave away $380 million, or roughly $7.6 billion in current dollars.
“The man who dies rich dies disgraced,” Carnegie said.
Buffett, 75, turned once-struggling Omaha-based textile firm Berkshire Hathaway into a $142 billion diversified company, had planned to have his wife, Susan, distribute his wealth to charity after his death. After she passed away he decided to put his money into the Gates’ foundation.
In addition to providing billions to help computerize public libraries in the U.S., Bill and Melinda Gates have dedicated themselves to fighting deadly diseases in underdeveloped countries. The two travel to places like India and Bangladesh to visit the people they will help and to see what the needs are firsthand.
Global health is the foundation’s principal focus, and it’s fostered the development, manufacturing and distribution of vaccines for ailments such as malaria, tuberculosis and acute diarrhea that kill millions of children in developing countries each year. The $5.9 billion the foundation has put into the effort has provided an incentive for pharmaceutical companies to develop such vaccines. In 2005, the Gates Foundation pledged $750 million to immunize children in poor countries. Such efforts underscore the benefits in shedding so much wealth.
