A Passion for Kids and Education Fuels Giving for One Buffett Child

Susie Buffett shares her father’s passion for public education — and it is her foundation’s biggest area of focus.

Ms. Buffett expects to distribute

more than $55-million per year, thanks to a $1-billion gift of Berkshire Hathaway stock from her father, Warren Buffett. More than half of her grant making is likely to go to early-childhood and elementary and secondary education.

Warren Buffett, a self-made billionaire, was already extremely wealthy by the time his children were school-age, but he kept his kids in public schools.

“My dad made a statement one time that if he could make one amendment to the Constitution it would be that everyone had to go to public school,” said Ms. Buffett, during an interview last month in her Omaha office. “It would fix the public-school system overnight. All those people who have checked out and don’t care would have to start caring, and it would make a huge difference.”

After graduating from Omaha’s Central High School, Ms. Buffett attended the University of California at Irvine (she dropped out of college, as did her two brothers), and eventually moved to Washington, where she worked on the business operations of two magazines.

She moved back to Omaha in 1988, when her parents asked her husband, Allen Greenberg (they have since divorced), to take over the foundation that Warren Buffett and his wife, Susan Thompson Buffett, established to give away their money.

Learning What Was Needed

When Ms. Buffett established the Susan A. Buffett Foundation (it will soon be renamed the Sherwood Foundation) with a gift from her parents in 1999, she knew she wanted to support education, but she didn’t know how. So she went to see John J. Mackiel, superintendent of Omaha Public Schools.

“He said what we need most is for the kids to come into kindergarten ready to learn,” Ms. Buffett says. “He actually said that he would like to eliminate 12th grade and put that money into early childhood.”

Based on that conversation, Ms. Buffett made early-childhood education the primary focus of her foundation.

Her mother, who died in 2004, had served on a nonprofit board with the Chicago philanthropist Irving B. Harris (he also died in 2004), who founded the Ounce of Prevention Fund.

In 2000, that fund created an Educare Center on the south side of Chicago, serving children born into low-income families, from infancy to age 5.

Ms. Buffett was impressed with the approach: The center keeps the same day-care workers with children for three straight years, has three teachers for every eight kids in most classrooms, and spends a third of its budget helping to educate parents.

“We looked at what they were doing and said let’s do that in Omaha,” Ms. Buffett says.

She gave $3-million — about half the cost of construction — to build an Educare Center in Omaha in 2002. The center is operated with a combination of federal, state, and school-district funds.

Ms. Buffett and her brother Peter have each pledged $15-million over five years to create a separate foundation, the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, to institutionalize their commitment to the field.

The fund has given the Ounce of Prevention Fund $1-million to support the creation of a network of Educare Centers, which are operating or are in the planning stages in six cities.

Ms. Buffett also has made grants to start all-day kindergarten at several elementary schools in Omaha, and has covered the cost of renovating the science laboratories at her alma mater, Central High School.

Very little of Mr. Buffett’s $40-billion fortune is likely to go to Omaha charities, but Ms. Buffett says her father’s $1-billion contribution to her foundation is good news for the family’s hometown.

“I’m the one who does the stuff in Omaha,” Ms. Buffett says.

Her grants list is chock-full of small checks to local charities.

“There are things in Omaha that I don’t particularly care about personally, but which I think are important to the community,” she says. “That’s why there’s this laundry list of checks that I write locally.”

Foster Care

Foster care could become a major program area for the foundation, Ms. Buffett says, if she can identify organizations that are poised to make improvements to what she views as a troubled system.

“What a mess,” she says. “I’m not so sure it doesn’t make sense to go back to a group-home kind of thing.”

Ms. Buffett’s foundation also gives $2-million per year to DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa), a charity started in 2002 by the rock star Bono that tries to combat some of the major crises facing African countries, including unpaid debts, the spread of AIDS, and tariffs that hurt African exports.

“Bono is passionate about this, and he is truly one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met in my life,” Ms. Buffett says. “I think what they’re doing is smart and important.”

The foundation currently employs only Daniel Pedersen, its president, and a half-time administrative person.

Ms. Buffett anticipates adding just two to three program officers as the foundation expands — to focus on Omaha, elementary and secondary education, and possibly foster care.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to have as many people around as some people seem to think,” she says. “Maybe I’ll be wrong, and then, you know what? We’ll have more people.”