Marie Dageville and her husband Benoit Dageville became billionaires overnight when his data cloud company Snowflake went public in September 2020. After that life-changing moment, Marie, a former hospice nurse, set out to figure out how to urgently give away that new fortune. .
“We have to redistribute what we have, which is too much,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press from her home in Silicon Valley.
While many say it’s hard to give away a lot of money, that’s not Dageville’s perspective. Her advice is to just start.
The richest people in America do encouraged each other to give away more of their money at least since 1889, the year Andrew Carnegie published an essay entitled “The Gospel of Wealth.” He argued that the richest should give away their fortunes during their lifetimes, partly to ease the sting of growing inequality.
An entire industry of consultants, courses and charities has grown to facilitate donations from the wealthy, inspired to some extent by the Giving Pledge, an initiative housed in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2010, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates And Melinda French Gates invited other billionaires to pledge to give away half their fortune during their lifetime or in their will. So far, 244 people have registered.
So what stands in the way of the richest people giving more and faster?
Philanthropy advisors say some answers are structural, such as finding the right vehicles and advisors, and some involve emotional and psychological factors, such as negotiating with family members or wanting to look good in the eyes of their peers.
“It’s like a huge, perfect storm of behavioral barriers,” says Piyush Tantia, head of innovation at ideas42, who recently contributed to a report funded by the Gates Foundation looking at what’s holding back the wealthiest donors.
He points out that unlike regular donors, who may give in response to a request from a friend or family member, the wealthiest donors ultimately put much more thought into where they want to give.
“We might think, ‘He’s a billionaire. Who cares about a hundred thousand? They will fix that in the next 15 minutes,” he said. “But it doesn’t feel that way.”
His advice is to think of philanthropy as a portfolio, with different risk levels and strategies ideally working together. This way it is less about the outcome of a single subsidy, and more about the cumulative impact.
Marie Dageville said she benefited from talking to other people who had signed the Giving Pledge, especially one person who urged her to general operating subsidieswhich means that the organization can choose how it spends the money. She trusts that nonprofits close to the communities they serve will know best how to spend the money and says she won’t let fear that they will misuse it hold her back.
“If you are in the position where you are now – able to redistribute this fortune – then you have taken risks or someone has taken risks on you,” she said, adding. “So why can’t you take some risk (in your philanthropy)?”
Dageville also believes that too much attention is paid to the wishes of the donors, instead of the needs of the recipients.
Private and open conversations between donors also help them move forward, advisors have discovered. The University of Pennsylvania’s Center for High Impact Philanthropy runs an academy that brings together ultra-wealthy donors, their advisors and the heads of foundations to learn together in cohorts.
Kat Rosqueta, the center’s executive director, said donors like it MacKenzie Scottthe author and now billionaire ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, show that it is possible to act quickly.
“Should all ultra-wealthy financiers move slower than MacKenzie Scott? No,’ she said.
But she said donors sometimes struggle to see how they can make a difference, as philanthropic funding is small compared to government spending or business sector.
Cara Bradley, deputy director of philanthropic partnerships at the Gates Foundation, said overseeing billionaires’ philanthropy also means they feel a huge responsibility to make the best use of their money.
“They signed a pledge that is sincerely committed to giving away this enormous amount of wealth. And then people can get stuck because life gets busy. This is difficult. Philanthropy is a real business,” she said.
It’s also not easy to conduct empirical research on billionaires, says Deborah Small, a marketing professor at the Yale School of Management. But she said current social norms generally value anonymity in giving, which is seen as more virtuous because the donor is not recognized for their generosity.
“It would be better for the charities, and for philanthropy as a whole, if everyone were open about it, because that would create the social norm that this is an expectation in society,” she said.
Jorge Pérez, founder and CEO of real estate developer Related Group, joined the Giving Pledge early on with his wife Darlene in 2012. In an interview with The Associated Press, Pérez said he regularly talks to his colleagues about giving more money. and faster.
“I think people aren’t answering my calls anymore,” he joked.
He has also involved his adult children in their philanthropy, much of which they do through the Miami Foundation. He said they decided to tap into the foundation’s expertise, instead of creating their own organizations, to speed up the evaluation of potential beneficiaries.
Even before the Pérezes joined the Giving Pledge, they were strong supporters of the arts and scholarship in Miami, where they are based. In 2011, the couple donated their art collection along with cash, worth a combined $40 million, to the art museum, which was renamed the Pérez Art Museum Miami after the donation.
Pérez said he gives because he believes deeply unequal societies are not sustainable and because he wants to leave a legacy.
“I continue to sell the idea you’re putting forward for very selfish reasons,” he said. “One of them is that it makes you feel good. But two, especially in the city, state or country where you choose to live, this will make a huge difference in the long run in making our society fairer, better and more progressive and likely lead to greater economic wealth.”
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The Associated Press will receive financial support for reporting in Africa through the bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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