A Rockefeller and a Buffett Share Their Views on Charity Fund Raising

“Cold calls” from charities soliciting support get nowhere with the philanthropists David Rockefeller Jr. and Susan A. Buffett.

The two donors offered that tip — and their wide-ranging views on charitable giving — at a discussion held by Milano the New School for Management and Urban Policy here.

“There are so many requests out there,” said Mr. Rockefeller, who is the eldest son of the billionaire philanthropist David Rockefeller, the retired chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, in New York. “It’s a real low likelihood a cold call would do something. Also in my case, my philanthropic plate is full. I kind of know what I am going to do next year.” Mr. Rockefeller has donated money for the environment and the arts, among other causes.

Mr. Rockefeller said he looks to the Rockefeller Foundation, in New York, established by his great-grandfather, the oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, to “have a more open stance and to have the staff to consider what things are worth doing.”

The foundation awarded $136-million last year to numerous causes, including efforts to curb climate change and rebuild New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. David Rockefeller Jr. joined its board in 2006.

Ms. Buffett, the daughter of the billionaire financier Warren E. Buffett, said she has become adept at declining lunch invitations from people seeking her support for projects. “Life is too short,” Ms. Buffett told the audience of nearly 500 people. “Most of the time you know at the beginning you are probably not going to do it.”

Ms. Buffett focuses most of her charitable giving on efforts to improve education, from early childhood through high school.

She keeps apprised of interesting charitable efforts through a staff member at her philanthropy, the Sherwood Foundation, in Omaha. Part of the employee’s job is to “be out there and find out what is going on,” she said. Ms. Buffett said she also learns about new groups through her “giving circle,” a group of about a dozen women who have been meeting quarterly for five years and pooling their donations to finance charitable projects. Ms. Buffett praised one local group she learned about through the circle, Justice for Our Neighbors, which provides immigrants with free legal assistance.

Role Models

While Mr. Rockefeller said the total amount of money he donated last year was in the “six figures,” Ms. Buffett’s Sherwood Foundation gave away $48-million, much of it to groups that provide education to poor children.

The sum represented nearly half of her foundation’s total worth before her father pledged $1-billion apiece in 2006 to foundations run by her and her brothers, Howard and Peter.

The event opened with a taped video address by former President Bill Clinton, in which he spoke about the importance of philanthropy. “At this point in history, nongovernmental organizations have more power than ever to change the world and save lives,” said Mr. Clinton, who heads a foundation in Little Rock, Ark., and holds an annual meeting, organized by his foundation, at which he prods political, corporate, and nonprofit leaders to think about how they can help solve the world’s problems.

Ms. Buffett and Mr. Rockefeller cited Mr. Clinton and former President Jimmy Carter as philanthropic role models. “Look at both these guys,” said Ms. Buffett. “They can do anything they want and they are spending every day working for other people.” Mr. Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, founded the Carter Center, in Atlanta, in 1982 to advance human rights and democracy, resolve conflicts, and improve health overseas.

Engagement and Dollars

Like Ms. Buffett, Mr. Rockefeller can also look within his own family for philanthropic role models.

Last year his father pledged $225-million to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, in New York, a foundation he established with his four brothers six decades ago. The gift brings contributions from the senior Mr. Rockefeller, who also donated $100-million in 2005 to the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, to nearly $1-billion.

David Rockefeller’s mother was instrumental in founding the museum. Her grandson, David Jr., has also started several charities. A lifelong sailor, he co-founded Sailors for the Sea, in Boston, several years ago after participating on a committee examining the health of the world’s oceans.

“The best thing I can do is to convince sailors that they ought to care about the recreational platform on which they ply their activity,” he said. “What I love about this is that it comes from passion, it’s joined by information, and is now being joined by dollars.”

Mr. Rockefeller said that, while he donates to his alma mater, Harvard University (which he attended as both an undergraduate and a law student), he reserves his biggest sums for groups with which he is personally involved. “If I love the people and I love the cause, I’ll be giving more — and if I don’t, it will be goodbye,” he said. “Fund raisers know that engagement brings dollars.”

However, Mr. Rockefeller said he has also walked away from causes he felt passionately about. In the early 1970s, he gave money and time to groups to promote arts education, which then led him to focus on the larger issue of how to improve public schools. He concluded that the solution involved better teacher training, but said he became “discouraged” about the ability of private and government grants to make a difference. “I decided I needed to work in this short life on things that I could feel were moving more rapidly,” he said.

In addition to being a board member at the Rockefeller Foundation and the Museum of Modern Art, Mr. Rockefeller is a trustee of the Asian Cultural Council and founder of Alaska Fund for the Future, an organization dedicated to preserving that state’s environment. He also worked for the Boston Symphony Orchestra for six years and is a former trustee there.

‘On the Ground’

Unlike Mr. Rockefeller, Ms. Buffett does not serve on the boards of any marquee nonprofit groups. While she sees value in those prestigious organizations, she said she prefers to follow the example of her mother, who died in 2004.

“My mother was not doing what most of the other women her age were doing,” said Ms. Buffett. “She wasn’t involved in the symphony or the opera, she was not just writing a check. She was on the ground every day.” Ms. Buffett said her mother focused her efforts on Omaha neighborhoods where large numbers of black people lived.

The younger Ms. Buffett is chairwoman of her parents’ philanthropy, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, in Omaha, which has made grants to population control, family-planning, and abortion-rights organizations. She also serves on several other boards, including Debt, AIDS, Trade Africa, more commonly known as DATA, which was founded in Washington by the rock singer Bono; Girls Inc., in New York; the Ounce of Prevention Fund, in Chicago; and the Omaha Theater Company for Young People.

Ms. Buffett’s work raising $10-million for the children’s theater more than a decade ago first prompted her father to set up a foundation for his children to give away money. When she approached donors to support the theater, they first asked what she would be giving, she said — and, at the time, she was a stay-at-home mother of two. She said to her father, “I can’t do this.” He then agreed to give each of his children $100,000 annually to disperse as they wished, she said.

“My dad has never put the strings on the money he has given us or tried to steer us in any way,” said Ms. Buffett. “He has been very supportive of all that has been going on.”

She said her father’s most recent pledge of $1-billion for her foundation was unexpected. But she added that “people assume that we have very different expense accounts than we do,” and get miffed when requests for support are turned down, which irritates her. “Sometimes when people ask you for $50,000 and you give $35,000, it’s amazing how people react,” she said. “A thank you would be nice.”