‘Time’: Giving Styles of the New Philanthropists

By JENNIFER MOORE

The multimillionaires of today “are finally stepping up to the collection plate,” according to Time (July 24). “And just as they’ve transformed American business, members of this new generation are changing the way philanthropy is done.”

The magazine reports that today’s donors want to play an active role in working with the charities they support, insist on doing extensive research before they give, and “demand accountability and results.”

Big donors in 2000 also tend to be relatively young. “The high-tech boom has made more people richer faster than at any other time in history — which means that more of the superrich are thinking about giving away their fortunes at an earlier age,” the magazine says.

And “enlightened self-interest” plays a role. “A healthy society creates a healthy market for everything from software to cell phones,” the magazine says. “Without high levels of education and public health, there would be no one to buy — or build — information-age appliances.”

Time profiles several major donors to illustrate its points, including:

• Bill Gates, who has used his Microsoft fortune to create the world’s largest foundation. The foundation, which connects libraries to the Internet and works to prevent and cure diseases in developing countries, “is as spartan in structure and style as an Internet start-up,” with just 25 employees, the magazine says.
• Lily Kanter, who at age 35 is “the sort of ‘ordinary’ multimillionaire that Microsoft has churned out by the thousands,” says Time. Ms. Kanter and her husband started their own foundation with $2-million.
• Andrew Rasiej, chief executive of a company called Digital Club Network, whose volunteer experience wiring a school for the Internet led him to start a non-profit group called Mouse (short for Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education). The organization has built a database of about 1,500 volunteers with high-technology skills.

But the magazine also found that some Silicon Valley entrepreneurs still prefer a more traditional approach to giving.

Jim Clark, whose leadership at Netscape Communications Corporation and other dot-com ventures earned him about $1-billion, according to Time, “has bestowed his money the old-fashioned way — by attaching his name to a building at Stanford University, his alma mater.”

And many top technology leaders are keeping the details of their donations to themselves, including Jeff Bezos of Amazon, John Chambers of Cisco Systems, Michael Dell of Dell Computers, David Filo and Jerry Yang of Yahoo, Halsey Minor of CNET, and Meg Whitman of eBay.

The article is available at http://time.com.