The Giving Pledge
"The most truly generous persons are those who give silently without hope of praise or reward.”
―
The Giving Pledge, what is it? In their own words:
"The Giving Pledge is a promise by the world's wealthiest individuals and families to dedicate the majority of their wealth to charitable causes."
That sounds nice. But as we dig a little deeper, just a little deeper (their About page) the niceness is getting strained already. Emphasis is mine.
"The Giving Pledge is a simple concept: an open invitation for billionaires, or those who would be if not for their giving, to publicly commit to give the majority of their wealth to philanthropy either during their lifetimes or in their wills."
In other words:
If you have $1,000,000,000.00 dollars or more, then announce publicy to the world how giving you are because you might get rid of half your money now or when you are dead.
Publicly announcing your your philanthropy is required. Giving to charity is optional. Even if the optional giving is fulfilled, all they are asking for is to give away the majority to charity in your will. If you have 1 billion dollars, please please only keep $500,000,000.00 after you die.
Just a quick reminder, 1 billion, is 1,000 millions. A billionaire is a millionaire 1,000 times over.
They have held 61 "learning events" in the last decade. I am a little shy of the required funds to join so I have never been invited to a learning event but their first event was at Miraval in Tucson. 2 adults in May starts at $1818.00 Per Night, Excluding Taxes & Fees. Holy hoity-toity! The first event was Thursday and Friday, to book those days in the nicest suite, $9,303.68 in 2022 prices.
By the time you count private jet flights and fuel, limos, food, entertainment and everything else, the 30 attendess probably could have ended world hunger for what they spent to talk about philanthropy.
I am all for charity and don't want to knock philanthropy. I also am not "anti-wealth" or have any problems with people being rich. This isn't about hating on the rich, this is about taking an honest look at The Giving Pledge, what it is, not what it claims to be.
Is the pledge hollow publicity or are the doing more than making empty promises and buying good will?
I didn't cherry-pick on purpose, these were the people I could find numbers for, then and now. Buffet has managed to grow his wealth, it is now 1.8 times bigger than when he took the pledge
Wealth growth since taking pledge:
- Average 11x
- Median 3.5x
Maybe these guys are planning on donating money after they die?
The argument that their wealth is tied up in stock and they don't actually have that much cash is semi-true. Take Larry Ellison- he managed to find cash for: a 288 foot yacht, a Gulfstream V and two military jets, 15+ real estate holdings including the island of Lanaii, Hawaii totaling an estimated $1 billion dollars.
Have these guys donated to chartiy? Yes. More than I ever will? Yes. "To settle an insider trading lawsuit arising from his selling nearly $1 billion of Oracle stock, a court allowed Ellison to donate $100 million to his own charitable foundation without admitting wrongdoing."
Again, this isn't about attacking the rich. This is simply looking at the Giving Pledge for what it is- a group of billionaires doing their version of posting staged Instagram photos to make them look nice.
