THE GIVING PLEDGE: 10 YEARS AFTER
“THE MAN WHO DIES RICH DIES DISGRACED.” Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth, 1889. In 2010, Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett started the Giving Pledge, a promise by very rich people to give away half their wealth before they die. The idea was to change the world of giving by encouraging more people with outrageous amounts of money to give more sooner, and most of all to give differently—to share ideas and best practices and make their giving more effective. Instead of (or perhaps in addition to) spending their money on a new helipad for their yacht in Cap d’Antibes, 206 individuals or couples have publicly promised to give half or more of their money away to those who need it. You’d think that would be cause for celebration, or at least a begrudging “thanks.”
Nope.
Why? Maybe it comes back to the fact that we are, in the words of Senator Bernie Sanders, “sick and tired of billionaires,” a feeling that has been growing over time—and hasn’t seemingly abated even as the rich have stepped up during the Covid-19 pandemic. (See story, page 32.) Maybe it just comes down to envy on our part. Perhaps the idea that a handful of people feel they can save the world feels like hubris. “How dare they?” Maybe the Kochs and Mercers (climate denialism) and the Selzes (antivax) have given philanthropy a bad name.
Whatever the reason, the Pledge has certainly had its critics. On the fifth anniversary, Bloomberg.com analyzed the estates of 10 Pledgers who’d died and found most had not given away half before they died. It concluded that the Pledge was more like joining a “club” than a genuine commitment. In June 2019, in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, journalist Marc Gunther concluded that the Pledge hasn’t “turbocharged philanthropy” as intended. He suggested that many Pledgers aren’t really living up to their commitment and only joined for the cachet. Kelsey Piper of Vox called the Pledge “disappointing” because more billionaires haven’t signed up.
This is the tenth anniversary of the Giving. They said:
