Billionaires Bill Gates, Warren Buffett want other billionaires to donate more to charity

Christian Science Monitor: Billionaires Bill Gates, Warren Buffett want other billionaires to donate more to charity

Billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett want other American billionaires to give at least half their wealth to charity.

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and billionaire investor Warren Buffett are launching a campaign to get other American billionaires to give at least half their wealth to charity.

Patty Stonesifer, former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Gates and Buffett have been campaigning for the past year to get others to donate the bulk of their wealth.

The friends and philanthropic colleagues are asking people to pledge to donate either during their lifetime or at the time of their death.

The handful of billionaires approached so far have embraced the campaign, said Stonesifer, a close friend of Gates who offered to speak about the effort. Four wealthy couples have already announced their pledges, including Los Angeles philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad, Gerry and Marguerite Lenfest of Philadelphia, John and Ann Doerr of Menlo Park, California, and John and Tasha Mortgridge of San Jose, California. …


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One response to “Billionaires Bill Gates, Warren Buffett want other billionaires to donate more to charity”

  1. It’s certainly in the grand tradition of Andrew Carnegie (maybe Rockefeller and a few others, too). I think many of today’s Really Rich are going to take a “you go first” attitude (Gates is certainly ahead of most – but when you’ve got a zillion $$, giving away .99*zillion still leaves you with a comfortable sum, and it’s certainly preferable to letting Uncle Sam get it when you drop dead. (Inheritance taxes, “death taxes” and all their variants are going to kick in at higher rates next January when the Bush tax cuts expire.) Armies of trust lawyers can only do so much.

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