Non-Profit Tech Blog

I’m not even sure how to say this but Warren G. Buffett has promised to give 85% of his entire wealth to the Gates Foundation. It looks like Fortune broke the news yesterday.

Mr. Buffett plans to give away 85 percent of his fortune, or about $37.4 billion, all in Berkshire stock. Of that amount, he will channel the greatest share, about $31 billion, into the Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation, dedicated to improving health and education, especially in poor nations, is already the United States’ largest grant-making foundation, with current assets of almost $30 billion. Mr. Buffett’s huge contribution may permanently solidify that philanthropy’s standing as the biggest and most influential organization of its kind.

I’m sure every development director in our sector is going to be in awe. And we thought the Joan Kroc gift in 2004 to NPR was enormous, just to give you some perspective, the Buffett gift is FIFTEEN times larger. After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I just thought one thing: an enormous opportunity lost.

Mr. Buffett is well known for his insistence on greater transparency in the private sector and with his kind of money, he could have imposed that on the non-profit sector as well. The only thing that’s decent about this gift is that he didn’t start his own foundation, thus increasing by one the number of forms development directors have to fill out when applying for a grant. It’s not a particular secret but funders tend to multiply exponentially the kind of forms and the kind of data they like on forms. It’s as if none of them ever talked to one another. If I had my druthers, I’d love for there to be one single way to apply for a grant and to track its results. Right now, every non-profit is trying to deal with more and more demands in terms of the number of grant formats they have to comply with. It adds even more overhead that non-profits really don’t need. Ahhhh, if there were only a single open API for funder applications…

Uh wait, there’s more…

Mr. Buffett’s contribution will not be made all at once, but rather in smaller annual increments. Moreover, the distribution could change in an as-yet unspecified way if Mr. Buffett dies before the entire sum is paid. The terms of the donation also require the continued active participation of at least one of the Gateses for the payments to continue.

Well, there’s hope yet. Perhaps this is Mr. Buffett’s way of ensuring that Bill stays his poker bridge partner. Well, with any luck, Buffett can demand a few changes at the Gates Foundation and perhaps there might be a trickle-down effect.