Philanthropy - A Competitive Sport?

By Mal Warwick

This article was originally published in the Nov-Dec 2006 issue of SALT published in Singapore by the National Volunteer and Philathropy Centre.  To see the PDF click here. 

Maybe Ted Turner started the game.  Or perhaps it was Andrew Carnegie, nearly a century earlier.  In any case, by now you know the first-string players:

*  Ted Turner, whose 1997 pledge of US$1 billion from his CNN fortune to the United Nations Foundation grabbed the attention of America's high-tech billionaires.

*  Gordon Moore, whose accumulated wealth from chipmaker Intel went into his own new US$5 billion foundation three years later.

*  William Hewlett and David Packard, whose immensely wealthy family foundations have long hogged spots near the top of America's biggest philanthropic ventures.

*  Pierre Omidyar and Jeffrey Skoll of eBay fame, whose high-profile foundations are fueled by their own billions.

*  And Bill Gates himself, reputedly the world's richest man, who has managed to give nearly US$30 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - with US$51 billion more still to come.

This, then, is the team that Warren Buffett joined when he took the stage recently with Bill and Melinda Gates for his surprise announcement that he was dedicating 85 per cent of his US$44 billion fortune to philanthropy, with US$31 billion of it going to Gates' foundation.

Not long after, Li Ka-Shing - Asia's richest man and the world's tenth richest, with a fortune estimated at US$18.6 billion - startled the world of philanthropy by announcing his plans to devote one-third of his wealth to his own charitable foundation.

These are the headline-grabbers, today's philanthropic leaders.  Viewed from a short-term perspective, they're continuing a trend established a decade ago by the biggest winners of the New Economy (software, microprocessors, media, investments).  Given the degree of media interest in such announcements, it's hard not to conclude that there's an element of competition playing out among these latter-day princes of commerce.

But it's always a mistake to take too short-term a view.  In fact, the recent rash of blockbuster announcements in the world of philanthropy merely continues a century-long trend.  Andrew Carnegie - the Warren Buffett of his age - is widely considered to have established the philanthropic trend as the 19th century turned into the 20th.  Between 1881 and 1917, he funded the building of some 2,000 public libraries across the U.S., not forgetting the other 800 he funded outside the U.S. as well.

But if Andrew Carnegie stirred up the waters, it was John D. Rockefeller - America's first billionaire and the Bill Gates of his era - who did even more to move philanthropy into the mainstream of American culture.  The Rockefeller foundation set the precedent for large-scale, visionary philanthropy, and today, John D.'s grandchildren and great-grandchildren, many of whom do not bear the Rockefeller name, are loyally continuing the tradition.

Still, philanthropy isn't just about money.  Even more important is how the money is used.  Carnegie's and Rockefeller's billion helped to shape the destiny of what has become the world's richest nation.  It remains to be seen what transpires as a result of the generosity of the world's newest billionaires.

Will much of this largesse be squandered on capital projects, resulting in land-mark buildings bearing the givers' names?  Or will it be put to productive use, fostering social change to help the nearly three billion poor people emerge from poverty and addressing humanity's biggest challenge yet, the specter of catastrophic global climate change?

It's far too early to tell.  But there are very encouraging signs, the most encouraging of which comes from Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett themselves.  The work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - focused on global health, secondary education, and public access to information through libraries, particularly in Africa - creates hope for the future of philanthropy because its priorities are clear, its approach entrepreneurial, and its commitment to fostering opportunity for billions of poor people unmistakable.  We'd be hard pressed to find better role models for philanthropy today.