ALAN'S LETTER

While many Americans will be contributing to what should be a record Giving Tuesday, projected total giving will amount to only the monthly income of each of the country’s five centibillionaires! On Giving Tuesday 2015, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan announced that they would give away 99% of their wealth. They are off to a very slow start. If they were to give $250 million every Tuesday it is unlikely that they would achieve their goal.

Thirty million people worldwide are at risk of dying from hunger. Give people democracy and reduce excessive wealth inequality and people will have fishing poles and fish. The challenges posed and surfaced by the COVID-19 crisis require a lot more money than has been forthcoming. President-elect Biden has said: “If Americans come together, there is nothing we cannot do.” The same could be said for philanthropists.

Election Day marks the end of the first phase of the CCC effort, launched on Bastille Day, July 14. The pandemic highlighted or fueled racial injustice, economic hardship, climate disruption, loss of trust among our international allies, and importantly, threats to our democracy. The whole nonprofit sector is in distress, having already cut 10% of its jobs. The donor class–foundations and ultra high net worth individuals–has its work cut out for it.

According to the Deloitte Monitor Institute, “early estimates of contraction in the nonprofit sector range from 10 percent to as high as 40 percent.” Chitra Hanstad, executive director of World Relief Seattle said “If they don’t save the nonprofits, they’re going to have to rebuild the entire sector,” As between the Hewlett Foundation (“we overreact to new risk…absorb them…move on) and Elvis, we’re going with Elvis on this one: It’s Now or Never.

Whereas YO (11 and its multiples) is good news, 50 is mostly negative: 50 ways to leave your lover, 50 shades of grey, 50-cent. We have 50 states, but we should have 51 or 52. 5-0 is the warning that police are coming. And perhaps worst of all, when you turn 50 you get your AARP card, psychologically signaling that you are on the downhill slope. Fortunately, we’re past 50 and now have fifty five CC signatories. YO – 55!

The passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg has brought the issue of voting into sharp relief, turning what would normally be a concern over people “not voting” into the fear of people “can’t voting.” Millions of people who now have additional motivation to vote will be denied the right due to voting obstacles, many of which have very partisan and racial overtones. Efforts to insure an inclusive, safe and secure election need money–lots of money.

While I was growing up, my father admonished me to never count other people’s money, which is ironic because he was an accountant and all he did was count other people’s money. I, too, spend time focused on other people’s money. A large share of all charitable dollars are actually funded by taxpayers. When it comes to asking foundations and rich people to step up to the plate and increase their charitable giving, what’s the holdup: it’s not even their money – it’s other people’s money!

Many years ago I went to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls. I was standing–waiting to run– on the part of the road that got cleared by police just before the race. I was very disappointed, until I realized that not being able to run might have saved my life. I appreciated being on the sidelines. But today, during this crisis, it’s not a time to be on the sidelines, especially if you are a foundation trustee or ultra high net worth individual.

Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) have rightfully come under a lot of criticism lately. The only two rationales for DAFs that have some merit: making grants outside a focus area; and managing grant-authority transitions. But it would be wrong to focus too much attention on DAFs, whose $100 billion of charitable assets is equal to the assets of just the top 0.1% of private foundations and is only one-tenth of the trillion dollars held by all foundations.

The Giving Pledge, created by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, was publicly announced exactly ten years ago today. As Bill Gates jokingly says, he cannot (does not?) give away his money fast enough: his net worth was $53 billion when he launched the Giving Pledge, now it’s more than twice that. The 100 living U.S. Pledgers who were billionaires when the pandemic began have seen their net worth grow by more than $200 billion!