Modbert
Daydream Believer
- Sep 2, 2008
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Buffett, Gates urge billionaires: Give half your money to charity - Investment News
While Gates's methods at Microsoft have been questioned from time to time, him and especially Buffett are class acts.
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, Calif., and John and Tasha Mortgridge of San Jose, Calif.
Gates and Buffett are calling their campaign The Giving Pledge. Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said in a letter introducing the concept that he couldn't be happier with his decision in 2006 to give 99 percent of his roughly $46 billion fortune to charity.
Buffett's plan will eventually split most of his shares of his Omaha, Neb., company between five charitable foundations, with the largest chunk going to the Gates Foundation.
While Gates's methods at Microsoft have been questioned from time to time, him and especially Buffett are class acts.