Category Archives: charity

Warren Buffett, billionaire philanthropist and investor was recently recognized by his fellow group of philanthropists.

Warren Buffett recently received the lifetime achievement award in philanthropy just this past Wednesday. Forbes magazine sponsored the event, and it was a private discussion about the topic.

Buffett not only pledged to give away the majority of his fortune, but the CEO and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway has made it a point to encourage others with over $1 billion to give away around half of their fortunes or more.

In a video related to the Forbes event, we see Bono from U2 singing a new version of Home Sweet Home, which he rewrote for the tribute of Buffett during the event. In the song, Bono sings how Warren Buffett does not want “No honors, no plaques, just a higher estate tax. Till his wealth is but a rich memory.”

Bono also mentions that Warren Buffett’s advice has encouraged and helped him with his own philanthropic endeavors.

If you ever wondered how to get free giving advice from billionaire investor Warren Buffett, then your prayers have been answered.

Warren is going to appear in a six session online course titled “Giving with Purpose,” as part of an offshoot of a college program series started by his sister Doris, and Alex Rozek, her grandson.

Doris Buffett and Alex Rozek operate the Learning by Giving Foundation, which offers $10k grants to college students that take the time to spend a semester figuring out the best place to give the money – and they also have to read and take instruction about the smart way to give. Currently, this course is being offered in 30 colleges and universities. It is now going to be freely available over the Internet. “We wondered how do we keep expanding this beyond 30 schools without creating a big organization,” said Alex Rozek.

That’s when they finally realized that the Internet and open online courses offered the answer to their question.

Maggie Johnson, a trustee of the Learning by Giving Foundation and a Google executive, with the help of Rebecca Riccio, a Northwestern University teacher on effective giving, helped Alex Rozek put the final touches on the “Giving with Purpose,” course that provides lots of information to those seeking these kind of answers. It consists of the same information being offered in the in-person classes.

Legendary philanthropist and investor, Warren Buffett, intends to host his only charity power lunch to benefit one of the biggest and most respected charities in the US, San Francisco’s GLIDE. They are currently celebrating their 50 year anniversary, where they help the neediest residents in the city. This eBay auction for a power lunch with Warren Buffett is now in its 14^th year. The opening bid begins on June 2 at 7:30 PM PDT and closes and June 7 at 7:30 PM PDT. The winning bid last year – $3,456,789 – set a world record as the highest selling auction on eBay.

This year’s bidding will start at $25,000. Each bidder has to be prequalified before they can actually place their first bid. If you’d like to prequalify to bid for the power lunch, please visit GlideLunchWithWarrenBuffett.com. The individual that wins the bid is allowed to invite up to seven friends to have lunch with Warren Buffett at Smith & Wollensky, “the quintessential New York steakhouse.”

If you’d like more information about the auction, please visit the website GlideLunchWithWarrenBuffett.com, or you can call 415-674-6001. If you would rather contact them by email, you can do so at Buffett@glide.org.

“As we mark 50 years in San Francisco, GLIDE is incredibly grateful to the long-term support we’ve received from Warren Buffett,” said GLIDE’s Founder and Minister of Liberation Reverend Cecil Williams. “Thanks to his vision, our ongoing partnership with eBay for 11 years, and the generosity of the winning bidders, we’ve been able to provide unconditional support to our neediest neighbors and help people regain control of their lives.”

“There’s all kinds of people that need that kind of help, and I don’t think anybody is better at providing it than GLIDE,” said Warren Buffett.

As Howard Buffett looked over a room of 700 people in Des Moines, Iowa, all there to hear him speak about the fight against world hunger, he gave the room a dose of constructive criticism.

When Buffett addressed the crowd of government officials, foreign aid association representatives and nonprofit leaders all there to help end world hunger, he said “the solution is not setting goals and campaigns, the solution is changing our mindsets.”

Howard Buffett – philanthropist, farmer, photographer, businessman and the oldest son of Warren Buffett – was the person delegated to give the keynote speech at the Iowa Hunger Summit this week. It took place at the World Food Prize event in Des Moines, Iowa.

Howard Buffett has spent many years of his life documenting the way that world hunger affects citizens of the United States of America, and all over the world. He has filmed certain situations, and written about them as well. You can learn about this information through some of the foundations that he supports and the nonprofit organizations that he runs. One such organization is known as Invest an Acre, and they encourage farmers to put aside 1 acre of land to donate the crops to their local food bank.

During his speech, Howard Buffett showed the audience a wide array of photographs. There were images of poverty, skulls, pestilence, war, emaciation, old people, young people, and dead and dying people, all to the tune of U2′s “Where the Streets Have No Name” as it played in the background.

“When I started, I thought if we could produce more, we could feed more people. I was wrong,” said Buffett, while he noted that there were lots of reasons why hunger still existed. Some of the issues were related to climate, transportation, and politics. All of these issues prevent people from getting the food that they need to survive.

Buffett also reminded us that there is need for a number of groups to start working on all of the problems previously mentioned. Many of the philanthropic organizations today started a long time ago, and their missions were “written before cellphones, before the Internet.”

Another issue with nonprofits is that they are actually afraid to solve the problem that they set out to fix. Why you ask? Because they know solving the problem will actually put a lot of people out of jobs.

“It’s not an indictment of you,” he said. “It’s an indictment of the system.”

During his speech, he recommends that foundations and nonprofit organizations issue a date of destruction of 40 years. He learned this deadline as a young farmer when he was taught that farmers have about 40 chances to get it right.

“What if every NGO (nongovernmental organization) set themselves up for 40 years? If we are really as good as we want to be, this approach will change our thinking and policy.”

Also during the Iowa Hunger Summit, AARP Foundation Director JoAnn Jenkins gave a speech about the challenge of food insecurity for the elderly in the United States.

To put it simply, food insecurity is not knowing whether or not you will have food available to you within a 24-hour period.

Jenkins also mentioned that it’s a “time of great anxiety and uncertainty” for the part of the population that is aging in the United States. For people 50 years of age or older, the unemployment rate has doubled, and the average Social Security payment is only $1200 per month.

Jenkins also said that older Americans are facing issues with isolation, unemployment and housing right now. She strongly encouraged the people in the audience to reach out to those older Americans, and let them know about certain resources such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps the American people put more food on their table.

“It is a sad irony that even as the world becomes more interconnected, people 50-plus feel more disconnected,” said Jenkins.

Warren Buffett’s children are well at work helping him give away a good portion of his $47 billion fortune. Their approach to donating this money is very similar to the way their father made all of that money to begin with.

Just like Buffett himself, each of his children have a tiny staff to work with. And they only appear to donate the money to very specific projects that they understand, and this is just like how their father buys stocks and businesses.

One thing is for certain. Warren Buffett has no say in the way that Peter, Howard and Susie’s foundations will use the $2.6 billion worth of Berkshire Hathaway stock that they will receive. But it is very evident that his children have seemed to absorb Warren’s personal philosophy.

“I think the only pressure I feel from him is making sure we’re smart about how we spend the money,” noted Howard Buffett. “He’s had no influence on where we give money, but he’s had a big influence on how we go about it.”

It’s important to note that Warren Buffett’s children have focused on many different outlets for their charities, and this is very reflective of their personal interests.

Howard Buffett has made the effort of helping farmers in nations that are impoverished, by giving them the ability to produce more in an effort to reduce world hunger. Susie Buffett is trying to help reduce teen pregnancy, and she is also looking to strengthen the early education of children. Lastly, Peter Buffett is making an effort to empower girls and women through quality education, as well as economic development, collaboration and a desire to put an end to violence against women.

“We’re given this amazing opportunity to try and make change where we can,” said Peter Buffett. “And being our father’s children, we don’t think small.”

Each of the Buffett children has been running different foundations set up by their parents since the late 1990s. But they were capable of increasing their giving in a dramatic way once 2006 hit, and their father made the announcement of his overall plan of philanthropy. Each of his children received their first $65 million worth of stock at this time to use toward their philanthropic endeavors.

The Buffett children better be prepared to do some more giving, because the annual gift of the Berkshire Hathaway stock that they receive will roughly go to about $100 million-$125 million for each child as of next summer.

The overall amount that each children’s foundations will receive in Berkshire Hathaway stock is going to be about $2.6 billion. But it must be noted that any charitable work that they do is very much overshadowed by the pledge that their father gave to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He’s going to give them stock worth nearly $44 billion.

The Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, which is the foundation created by Warren Buffett’s first wife, who passed away in 2004, will receive nearly $4.4 billion worth of Berkshire Hathaway stock. The charitable organization is known to try and minimize the spread of nuclear weapons, and it also promotes the reproductive health in women.

All of the Buffett children are very happy that their father continuously encouraged them to take risks. This gives them the ability to tackle important issues without being afraid to do so. They also mentioned that they were happy that their parents took it upon themselves to set up each child with their own separate Foundation, because this gives them the ability to go their own way and support the programs that they like the most.

It’s not uncommon for Howard Buffett to travel to many of the poverty-stricken areas around the world, where he speaks with farmers and also has the ability to overlook the different projects that his foundation is funding. He often refuses to tell his father exactly where he’s going when he makes these trips, because the 57 year old son of the Oracle of Omaha doesn’t want his father worrying about him while he travels to some of these dangerous destinations. An example would be the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Howard Buffett makes it a point to take a close look at the challenges of the many farmers that he tries to help, since he can relate to them because he is a farmer of soybeans and corn in the state of Illinois. This reminds him of his mother, who always made it a point to try and help everyone in need that she came across.

“It’s very hard for me to walk into those circumstances and not try to do something,” Howard said.

Howard Buffett also makes an effort to focus his giving in a way that will allow the recipients to continue on once his grant money is no longer available. He does not try to bring expensive projects like irrigation and hybrid seeds into areas where the farmers will not eventually be able to afford them on their own.

Warren Buffett actually manages one of the world’s largest conglomerates, and he does it with a very tiny staff of only two dozen people at their headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. Peter, Howard and Susie each only have a staff of half that amount for the foundations that they currently run.

Peter Buffett also mentions that the Buffett children follow the same beliefs as their father, and like to limit their charitable giving to areas that they understand. This is very similar to the way that their father invests.

“You want to be as focused on an end goal as you can be,” said Peter Buffett. “In a very practical way, it helps to say no.”

Peter Buffett is a composer and a musician, but his charitable passion is helping girls and women throughout the world in a variety of different ways. It’s his hope that the girls in impoverished areas will gain access to better educational resources, and because of this they will be able to participate more in their community and become more responsible decision-makers.

The NoVo Foundation run by Peter Buffett also supports programs in the US schools which teach kids the right kind of emotional and social skills that they need, as well as sound decision-making skills.

Susie Buffett is very happy to try and solve some of the human problems that can get quite messy, that are also very difficult to solve. This is very similar to what her mom did.

“That comes directly from my childhood. It is what I watched my mother do,” said the 59 year old Susie Buffett. “She had me in the car with her at a very early age in the housing projects and deep in the community. She was very involved personally. It was not a check writing thing. It was her being there.”

Susie Buffett has been very interested in education throughout her life, but she chose to focus the money that her foundation gave to education in early childhood. She made this decision because she asked the superintendent of schools in Omaha where she would be able to make the biggest difference.

Since Susie Buffett is currently the only child of Warren Buffett living in Omaha, she also decided to put her Sherwood Foundation funds to work with other nonprofits in Omaha. This is a great effort to help make the city a better place, and also help the low-income neighborhoods as well.

It’s good to know that Warren Buffett supports the work of his children, and he’s proved that by increasing the amount of money he is going to give each of their foundations. He also regularly praises their philanthropy.

“Everything has impressed me,” said Buffett. “They’re each doing things they have a special interest in which they have some special abilities too. And they work very hard at it.”

Warren Buffett did things his way in order to make $50 billion, and it was very consistent that during The Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy which was held at the main branch of the New York Public Library, instead of taking a book out of the building, Warren Buffett actually brought one in. He specifically brought in a well-worn printing of the hardcover book named I Remember, which is the autobiography of a gentleman named Abraham Flexner and it was written in 1940. Most modern philanthropists have never even heard of this person.

While flipping through the pages of the autobiography that Warren Buffett read nearly 50 years ago, he mentions that “Abraham Flexner probably influenced philanthropy as much as any individual in the country. Not in terms of the money he used but of what he brought to the game.”

This native of Louisville Kentucky was first brought into the public eye in the year 1908 for writing the book The American College. The book actually condemned higher education because it relied upon lectures instead of hands-on teaching and smaller classes. Andrew Carnegie was quite attracted to Abraham’s analysis of higher education, particularly because he really wanted there to be reforms in medical schools.

In 1910, the Carnegie Foundation published a document known as “The Flexner Report,” and this report actually set national standards for the training of physicians. “He was not a doctor,” said Warren Buffett. “He just was smart and straight thinking. And after he worked for a couple of years for Carnegie to do this, half of the medical schools closed. I mean, he actually changed medical education.” Abraham Flexner also made a major impact during the year 1930, when being backed by Louis Bamberger, with Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, in which he recruited individuals like J. Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein.

Buffett also said “I’ve studied what both the people with the money do and the people who were implementing the ideas of the people with the money. And it had an influence on me very early.”

Now that we know there was a long-term influence in Warren Buffett’s life, we are no longer mystified by his philanthropic philosophy and desire to donate so much of his money. Also, if you are curious as to why Warren Buffett is ready to outsource his philanthropy to Melinda and Bill Gates, then you don’t have to look any further than Flexner.

“Carnegie did not go out and visit all of these medical schools himself,” said Warren Buffett. “He got Flexner to do it. George Eastman wanted to start a great medical school in Rochester, and he didn’t know how to do it. He called up Flexner and said, ‘Tell me how to do it.’ And it was the same way with the Bambergers. So I believe in getting things done through other people.”

You can also look at Flexner’s influence to explain why Warren Buffett wants his fortune to be put into action within 10 years of his death. Mr. Buffett remembers a New York Times editorial about Flexner that he read in 1959 at the time of his death. This editorial ended by stating that “no other American of his time has contributed more to the welfare of this country and of humanity in general.” Warren Buffett has now set himself up to inject the largest amount of cash into philanthropy, and people are going to sing his praises the same way that they sang the praises of Abraham Flexner.

A gentleman from Omaha, Nebraska, pleaded guilty to stealing from the Warren Buffett charitable organization. He was the person responsible to oversee the programs that get money from Warren Buffett’s charitable foundation.

The newspaper the Omaha World – Herald reported on Tuesday that the individual has pleaded guilty to stealing from the Buffett Foundation in the amount of $46,000. Patel, the 38-year-old man who committed the robbery, will be sentenced during the month of November. There is a strong possibility that he may face up to as many as 20 years behind bars.

According to the police, a different member of the foundation contacted a London hotel of which Patel had provided a receipt. He was looking for a reimbursement for his supposed “expenses,” but the employee found out that Patel never actually stayed at this hotel. So the employee checked other expense reports and found out that there were tens of thousands of dollars worth of fraudulent receipts that Patel submitted.

According to the newspaper in Omaha, Patel was paid $190,000 a year as the senior program officer, and he has repaid the $46,000 to the charity already.

In what really isn’t much of a surprise to anybody, Amancio Ortega, the Spaniard gentleman that founded Inditex SA, has recently knocked Warren buffet off of his spot as the third richest person in the world. Why is it not a surprise? Because Warren Buffett has been giving away large portions of his wealth over the last six years now.

Ortega, who is currently 76 years old, gained a total of $1.6 billion because the share prices of his stock gained a total of 3.8 percentage points which was a record at the close of the day. This is all learned according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, where we found out that Ortega’s wealth is now a total of $46.6 billion. This major gain in stock value actually puts the Zara clothing chain owner above Warren Buffett, who is the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Warren Buffett’s current net worth is $45.7 billion. He has ranked number three the entire time that this index existed, which hasn’t been all that long since it only was created on March 5 of this year.

A market rout in Spain has caused Ortega’s wealth to rise an amazing 32% this year, where it has gained a total of $11.4 billion. The policy makers in this country are currently resisting a lot of pressure being put on them to get aid from the central bank in Europe. The profit of Inditex has risen for twelve quarters in a row, and they have gone on to add more stores in markets that are emerging, in places such as China, and this has allowed them to reduce their dependence on Spain. This is important since the unemployment in that country has gone up over 20%. It’s hard to make money when nobody has jobs and income to pay for your products.

“Buffett’s holdings have done well recently, but not all of them,” stated Walter “Bucky” Hellwig, who helps manage $17 billion at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama. Amancio Ortega “has a more concentrated holding, and that implies more risk. You may have these fits and starts between them going forward.”

Inditex spokesman Raul Estradera chose not to comment. There was an e-mail message left with the 81-year-old Buffett, which he did not respond to. His assistant Carrie Sova was the one who got the message.

Carlos Slim And Bill Gates

Shares of Inditex rose yesterday in Madrid, and it was part of a rally in European stocks. The reason why these stocks rallied is because the German Chancellor named Angela Merkel, and her government, decided to back the European Central Bank’s plan to buy bonds from countries that are weighed down with debt, such as Spain. The shares of Berkshire Hathaway actually fell a half percent in New York when news that they increased their cash hoard to the highest level in a year. Buffett cut back on his bets of consumer-products stocks. Berkshire Hathaway also reported their second quarter earnings on August 3, and they beat the street and estimates by analysts.

Carlos Slim is now $27.6 billion ahead of Ortega, and he is a Mexican telecommunications tycoon. He is also the richest person in the world. Bill Gates is the cofounder of Microsoft, and also the second richest person in the world according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He is currently worth a total of $63 billion.

Ortega actually became the richest man in Europe on June 13. At that time he passed Ingvar Kamprad of Sweden, who is also the owner of the major retail chain IKEA. He is the founder of the largest furniture seller in the world, and he also happens to be worth a total of $37 billion.

Warren Buffett actually made a donation of 22.1 million shares of class B Berkshire Hathaway stock on July 6. He gave it to charity, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission were notified. Those shares would actually be worth a total of $1.9 billion today, since the value of class B shares are worth $85.15 at the time of this writing. The majority of the stock went to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge

During the year 2006, Warren Buffett actually made a pledge that he would give the majority of the money that he’s made to charity, and during that same year he gave 20% of his Berkshire stock at the time. Now he plans on donating 4% of the shares each year during the month of July, and he has done so every year since then. Buffett has actually made a total of $2.9 billion this year.

Before Buffett made this pledge to donate the majority of his money, he actually kept the bulk of his net worth in class A shares of Berkshire Hathaway. During March 2006, Warren Buffett owned 474,998 of those shares based on a proxy statement from the company. If he still had all those shares, that total net worth would be $60.7 billion based on the market close yesterday.

Buffett’s current share value is 350,000 class A shares, and 3.8 million class B shares of his company Berkshire Hathaway.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett both started the Giving Pledge during the middle of 2010, and they are trying to get the ultra rich to make a commitment to give away the majority of their fortunes to philanthropic ventures. They have actually gotten 81 families to sign this pledge, and this information is based on the Giving Pledge’s website.

“My wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound interest,” Buffett says in a letter that he sent to his shareholders in June of 2010. In agreeing to donate 99 percent of his wealth, he said, “my family and I will give up nothing we need or want.”

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index measures the amount of wealth that the richest people of the world have based on the current economic climate and market conditions. They update the figures of each person’s net worth at the end of the business day at 5:30 PM in New York, plus these figures are listed in US dollars, and they are based on the current exchange rates.

If you don’t already know, Warren Buffett is on the verge of turning 82 and he was unfortunately diagnosed with prostate cancer very recently. The good thing is that the third most wealthy man in the world does not plan on slowing down one bit due to this diagnosis. He does not plan on passing the reins of Berkshire Hathaway to his successor yet either, so you can trust that the Oracle of Omaha isn’t giving up whatsoever.

There are a lot of people who reach the age of Warren Buffett and begin to get all kinds of stressed out about their health problems, and they even often change their diet to help combat some of the health issues that they face. Warren Buffett hasn’t changed whatsoever and doesn’t intend to change this about himself either.

He plans to continue to eat all of his favorites such as hamburgers, French fries, strawberry shortcake, Cherry Coke, steak, hash browns and banana cream pie to name just a few. One other startling confession from many people that are close to Warren Buffett is that they’ve never actually seen him take a single sip of water. You may find that very hard to believe but it’s the absolute truth.

Warren Buffett’s successor at Berkshire Hathaway has already been chosen and disclosed at this very moment. But Warren and the rest of Berkshire Hathaway plan on keeping this person’s identity secret for the time being. The way things go in the business world, it is a fact that the stress and strife that come along with working as a high level executive could unfortunately cause the successor to pass on prior to Mr. Buffett. So it makes sense that they would want to keep this individual’s identity under wraps for the time being.

You probably know already that Buffett intends to give away the majority of his $44 billion fortune. Just a mere few days ago, he donated 18.4 million shares of his Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. The value of that stock is estimated at $1.52 billion. He also gave away a 1.2 million shares of Berkshire stock to his favorite three children’s foundations, as well as 1.8 million shares to his very own Buffett Foundation. And last but not least, he gave 10 shares each of Berkshire stock to 15 different schoolchildren that qualified in the finals of a business contest that he ran.

It’s practically common knowledge that Warren Buffett, billionaire investor, plans to donate the majority of his wealth to various charities before he passes on. So it should come as no surprise to you that he just donated $1.52 billion as part of his annual gift to the Gates Foundation. The foundation was created by Bill Gates, who is cofounder of Microsoft Corp.

Warren Buffett is the CEO and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which is his Omaha-based investment firm. There was also a donation made of 18.4 million in the form of Berkshire Hathaway’s Class B shares. This donation went to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. There was a filing on Friday which proves this to be true. Shares of Berkshire Hathaway’s Class B stock closed at $82.54 last Friday in New York City.

Warren Buffett is also a trustee of the Gates Foundation, as well as being the third richest man in the world. His current net worth is in the neighborhood of $46 billion. This information was gathered according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s index, which is a daily ranking of the wealthiest people around the world. Mr. Buffett has also campaigned quite extensively to promote giving charitably.

“I urge people to unbutton their wallet, pull out a check, reach into their purse, whatever it takes,” said the 81 year old Buffett in a YouTube video that he put out last year. “You will find that when you give a dollar and something of yourself, a lot more than a dollar comes out the other end.”

In 2006, Warren Buffett shared his plans with the world which amounts to him donating 10 million Class B shares to the Gates Foundation. The initial gift he presented them was in the amount of 500,000 shares. He will also release the remaining shares of his donation 5% at a time on an annual basis. Each donation will be less shares then presented to the foundation the year before.

Warren Buffett wasn’t concerned about presenting the foundation with less shares each year because he stated that the shares will rise “in an irregular manner, by an amount that more than compensates for the decline in the number of shares that will be distributed.” There was already a 50 to 1 split of the Class B shares in 2010.