Passion for Causes and a Sense of Duty Prompt Donors to Give Big Sums

The billionaire investor and philanthropist Warren E. Buffett is not the only American to have pledged most of his wealth to charity. While none of the 80 or so members of the 50% League are billionaires, they have all donated at least half of their income over the past three years, or half of their net worth at some point in their lives.

The project is the brainchild of Anne and Christopher Ellinger, an Arlington, Mass., couple who have compiled a list of the donors on their Web site.

In showcasing the donors’ stories and photographs on the site, the Ellingers hope more people will be inspired to figure out how much money they really need and to consider giving the rest away. The Ellingers count themselves among the group: They gave away more than half of a $550,000 inheritance from Mr. Ellinger’s grandfather in the early 1990s.

The Ellingers sought permission to list each 50% League member online, although some donors shared their stories but withheld their names. The couple says 30 additional people are members, but they haven’t yet posted their vignettes on the site.

The list currently includes donors old and young (some under 30), people who inherited their fortunes as well as those who earned them, and some entrepreneurs who founded companies that give away more than half their profits.

Not everyone is mega-rich. Richard Semmler, a math professor at Northern Virginia Community College, in Annandale, says he has given away half his $100,000 income for the past 10 years, mostly to the college, his alma mater — Plattsburgh State University, in New York — and Habitat for Humanity International, in Americus, Ga., where he is also a longtime volunteer.

Also on the list: Doris Buffett, who says on the site she has so far donated nearly $35-million she inherited from her mother, and hopes to give away all her wealth before she dies. Her brother, Warren, does not appear yet, but the Ellingers hope to list him if they can secure his approval. (Mr. Buffett declined to comment for this article.)

While a preponderance of donors on the league’s site favor grass-roots causes, which have been among the Ellingers’ main giving priorities, they hope soon to include donors who support other missions.

“People need more role models,” says Mr. Ellinger. “Storytelling can be very powerful and we have been working very hard to come up with a whole range of stories, so that people can see themselves somewhere in the mix.”

Below, four league members discussed with The Chronicle why they chose to give away a large part of their wealth.

John R. Hunting, 75Grand Rapids, Mich. Amount donated to charity: $122-million

By 2010, I plan to have given more than $130-million away, mostly to environmental causes.

My father co-founded the company that became Steelcase, a manufacturer of office equipment, and when I was 6 years old he divided his company stock among his three sons. The company’s sale in 1998 sparked a windfall of $130-million for me.

I’m giving it away because I don’t have any children, and because I care about the environment. If you are an environmentalist, it is immoral or a sin to not spend down now, when in 50 years the world will be a flaming ball, and what good is the money then? I want it spent in my lifetime so there is no question about where it goes, and I also feel there is an argument for short-lived foundations being more focused.

When I received the $130-million, I gave $100-million of the stock to my foundation, the Beldon Fund, in New York. All that money, plus any investment principal, will be spent by 2009.

I got the name for the group from a book of baby names. “Beldon” means “beautiful valley,” and I had never heard that name used for a person. The foundation focuses on environmental health and strengthening public support for environmental protection in five states: Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. Last month we held a conference in Washington for our grantees in those five states, so they could get to know each other.

The Beldon Fund has given away about $70-million so far and we are in the process of hiring some evaluators. I want to know how we did, both the good and how we made mistakes, and let people know about it.

The killing of whales was the first environmental issue that captured my attention about three decades ago. After attending an international conference on whales, I realized the close connection between protecting the environment and politics.

I used to be a moderate Republican; now I tend to support Democrats because most Republicans have totally rejected the environmentalists. I have personally donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the League of Conservation Voters, where I am on the board, the Sierra Club, and Clean Water Action, because those groups work mostly in the public-policy realm, trying to attract the attention of voters to the issues.

In addition to my giving through the Beldon Fund, I have another foundation in Grand Rapids, the Dyer-Ives Foundation, named after my two grandmothers. The fund has about $7-million in assets and gives away about $500,000 annually to support grass-roots, neighborhood organizations that seek to reduce poverty and isolation around Grand Rapids.

I plan to turn my attention to that fund, and expend all its resources, after the Beldon Fund finishes its grant making. I also support other progressive causes through membership in Democracy Alliance, a Washington group that seeks to foster collaboration among progressive leaders and institutions, and the Threshold Foundation, a progressive grant-making and membership organization, in Boston. I consider myself an ethical humanist: someone who does not believe in God or the supernatural, but who does have ethics and does good works.

I have sufficient money to take care of myself, I do not intend to go into penury. But I’m working on my will now and my remaining assets will pass to environmental groups and progressive political groups. You can’t take it with you — the money was a gift to me and I have a responsibility to pass it along as a gift to others.

Becky Liebman, 54Olympia, Wash. Amount donated to charity: $8.6-million

About 15 years ago, I received some stock from my father’s company, which makes electronic components in the Midwest. The stock wasn’t a surprise but the magnitude was: Over the years, about $16-million has come my way and I have given away more than half of it. My parents were surprised at how much they could give as well. They said, “We set out to take care of our family and we overshot the mark.”

I was very disoriented by this money. For a long time, I worked as a reference librarian in my town and I was good at it. I liked that part of my identity and worried that if I wrote big checks people would just see me as a big-check writer and nothing else. But I had this palpable emotion that I was sitting on a big resource, kind of like a large compost pile, and I wanted to distribute it sooner rather than later to take advantage, to try and fix something now that would not have to be fixed later on.

I know quite clearly that I have no desire to set in motion a foundation that would live beyond me, and I am willing to make my best guess about where to donate this money before I die. However, there is still some stock in our estate worth about $5-million that will go to the Chicago Community Trust upon my death.

My husband and two grown children are supportive of my philanthropy, but haven’t elected to take much of a role deciding where the money goes.

I am most moved by grass-roots organizations where people articulate for themselves where they see the problems and solutions coming from. I started a donor-advised fund at the Tides Foundation, in San Francisco, and decided to give money away to organizations where many minds help regrant the gifts, including the Women’s Funding Alliance and Social Venture Partners, both in Seattle, and Global Greengrants Fund, in Boulder, Colo.

I don’t have the time or the brain power to figure out by myself which nonprofit groups should receive the money.

For the past six years I’ve also been interested in education-equity issues. I’ve written newsletters, organized events, and given $358,500 to the Algebra Project, in Cambridge, Mass., a national math-literacy campaign aimed at low-income kids of color.

I no longer work as a librarian, and for the past year I have volunteered at a local school that is in need of resources, doing things like making ice packs for students who get bumps and bruises during the day, tutoring kids, and trying to reactivate the Parent Teacher Association there. I wanted to pay the salary to add another full-time counselor at the school, but found out there are a lot of complications involving personnel rules and regulations, but I am still pursuing it.

I have also started to give some money more directly and locally. When you write big checks, I noticed you miss opportunities that small checks can give.

I hired a woman older than myself who is familiar with the community but has no formal grant-making experience. I set up a checking account, which I call the “share it now” fund, and every month she calls different nonprofits, finds out about their needs, and tries to fill in some of the cracks. She spends about $2,000 a month on different projects.

We’ve helped a Cambodian refugee buy groceries and helped three families whose mobile homes burned down with coats, toys, phone and gift cards. We think of it as fairy dust.

My philanthropy was looking more at where systems can be changed rather than the service side of philanthropy, but if you overlook the service side you are losing a bit of your soul.

David Ludlow, 64Jamaica Plain, Mass. Amount donated to charity: $1.1-million

For the past seven years I have been giving away $150,000 annually, which is about half my income. But the money wasn’t really mine to begin with.

When I was over 50, I got married for the first time, to a wealthy woman, Vanda Sendzimir. Her father designed steel mills that manufactured titanium, and earned his fortune through royalties on steel produced around the world in his mills, and also through real-estate investments. When Vanda died in 1996, in a climbing accident the day before our first wedding anniversary, I began to receive the annual interest on a third of that fortune, $5-million. The principal will pass to the Haymarket People’s Fund, Oxfam, and the Southern Poverty Law Center upon my death.

I wanted to use some of the money to honor her memory. She was a writer, and she was involved in different anti-racism projects. Also, we were planning to adopt a little girl from China when she died. I didn’t want to be a single father, but I wanted to find a way to help children and fight racism.

My most difficult years were my teen years, and I wanted to help the teenagers who have the greatest battles to fight. My background is in social organizing, so I started a group called Social Justice Education, in Roxbury, Mass.

Through an after-school program that teaches community-organizing skills, political consciousness, and literacy development, the group helps local teenagers from low-income neighborhoods learn how to become leaders and organize campaigns to overcome racism and inequality.

Almost all of my annual giving supports the group, with the rest going to help a few other organizations, including Union of Minority Neighborhoods, in Boston, which works to empower low-income people of color.

Social Justice Education is at a critical juncture. Over the years I’ve given them close to $1-million, but now they need to start raising more money from other sources. I used to be the director, then I was on the board, but now I’m just a donor. As a wealthy white person, I needed to step back and let the agency do their own thing.

I didn’t set out to join the 50% League, but I gave what I thought was needed to get the group on its feet and that’s what it turned out to be. I enjoy a very nice lifestyle and that’s why it is important for me to do what I can for people who can’t.

I’m now remarried and next year I’ll have to scale down my giving a bit, as my wife is taking a year off from her teaching job to decide what her next step will be.

My own career was first in social work, then public relations and photography. Now I primarily volunteer for two groups, Boston Workers Alliance, a community organization fighting to end job discrimination for people with criminal records and fighting for decent jobs for people who want to work, and Bolder Giving, a group that encourages people to figure out their giving potential and give more of their wealth away during their lifetimes.

Since I don’t have unlimited wealth to give away, increasingly my mission is to inspire other wealthy people to get involved directly in those campaigns that they are the most passionate about.

My sense is people of great wealth are feeling numb, confused, and bewildered, and they are yearning for meaning to make a difference in the world. What makes your life richer is not to hoard it but to give away as much as you comfortably can.

Brad Seligman, 55Oakland, Calif. Amount donated to charity: $1.5-million

In 1991 I turned 40 and became a millionaire. I didn’t plan it that way; I wanted a more flexible work schedule, and when I resigned my partnership at the law firm where I litigated class-action lawsuits, I walked out with more than a million and half dollars.

I’m a product of the 60s and, frankly, wealth on some level was embarrassing to me and I wanted to get rid of a bunch of it as quickly as I could. I thought I would donate it to other charities, but I decided I didn’t want to be that passive. In 1992, I took $1.25-million, a significant chunk of my partnership-ending payday, and started the Impact Fund here, where I still work as executive director.

The Impact Fund’s mission is to try and provide the yeast for creating growth of civil-rights class-action litigation as a tool of social justice, and to help people use the legal system as part of a comprehensive program of social change.

We’ve had plenty of success stories, including helping a group in Los Angeles advocate for better bus service and new vehicles, to replace the rickety old ones.

The way we work is by making grants to public-interest lawyers and small nonprofit groups, providing counseling in select cases, and training for lawyers in California.

The Impact Fund now has 13 employees, and generates its $1.25-million annual budget through donations from individuals, support from foundations, and some of our successful grantees also pay us back. We also get some money from class-action lawsuits, which we litigate a few of ourselves.

Our biggest case currently is the class-action sex-discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart. The case contends that women employed at the company’s stores around the country were discriminated against in terms of pay and promotions. [Wal-Mart declined to comment on the case.]

In addition to starting the Impact Fund, I also gave $250,000 to the Vanguard Public Foundation, in San Francisco, to pay for three-month sabbaticals for grass-roots advocates. Between 1994 and 2000, 24 people were able to take time off through the program.

For the first 10 years of the Impact Fund I didn’t take a salary and lived off my stocks and bonds and some modest teaching income. Now I earn $85,000 but I give away about a quarter of it.

I have never believed there is any advantage to accumulating wealth beyond being comfortable. I am not worried about my retirement or my kids’ college bills — beyond that, who cares?