Did you know that Warren Buffett gave 85% of his money to charity (mostly to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) to a total of 40.7 billion dollars.
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NEW YORK (FORTUNE Magazine) — We were sitting in a Manhattan living room on a spring afternoon, and Warren Buffett had a Cherry Coke in his hand as usual. But this unremarkable scene was about to take a surprising turn.
“Brace yourself,” Buffett warned with a grin. He then described a momentous change in his thinking. Within months, he said, he would begin to give away his Berkshire Hathaway fortune, then and now worth well over $40 billion.
Warren Buffett gives it away
An interview with Buffett
How the giveaway will work
The force called the Gates Foundation
From the FORTUNE archives
Should you leave it all to the children?
If you do, you may not be doing them a favor. But if you want to, there are sensible ways of passing on what you have without depriving the kids of a feeling of achievement. (more)
Letters from Buffett
As part of his plan, Warren Buffett is sending letters to each of the five foundations that will be receiving his gifts. The letters may be found on Berkshire Hathaway’s Web site. (See the letters. )
This news was indeed stunning. Buffett, 75, has for decades said his wealth would go to philanthropy but has just as steadily indicated the handoff would be made at his death. Now he was revising the timetable.
“I know what I want to do,” he said, “and it makes sense to get going.” On that spring day his plan was uncertain in some of its details; today it is essentially complete. And it is typical Buffett: rational, original, breaking the mold of how extremely rich people donate money.
Buffett has pledged to gradually give 85% of his Berkshire stock to five foundations. A dominant five-sixths of the shares will go to the world’s largest philanthropic organization, the $30 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose principals are close friends of Buffett’s (a connection that began in 1991, when a mutual friend introduced Buffett and Bill Gates).
Warren Buffett gave 85% of his money to charity (mostly to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) to a total of 40.7 billion dollars
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