December 2, 1999 | Read Time: 1 minute
A “new subculture” of entrepreneurial philanthropy has sprung up on the West Coast as thousands of Microsoft and other high-technology workers have cashed out their stock options while still in their 30s and 40s, says Vanity Fair (December).
Unlike in New York, where the wealthy from Wall Street write checks and go to fancy galas to support causes, “in Seattle, the prestige thing is to go into the non-profit sector — and work,” the magazine says.
Tina Podlodowski, a 39-year-old former Microsoft employee — who, among other things, helped start the Podlodowski/Mileur Fund for Gay and Lesbian Families with Children with the fortune she amassed — said her counterparts are contemplating questions such as, “How do you take a non- profit structure and make it self-mastering?”
Microsoft millionaire John Sage answered that question this way: He quit his job with the software corporation and started Pura Vida Coffee, which uses all of its profits to pay for Christian ministry work in San Jose, Costa Rica. Most of the coffee supplier’s customers are churches, and the Internet is its primary means of marketing.
“I view this as a laboratory,” Mr. Sage told Vanity Fair. “There has to be a way to harness capitalism on behalf of social change.”
