Warren Buffett is a remarkable friend and mentor to both Melinda and me, and we have learned so much from spending time with him and working with him on foundation projects. A few years ago Warren suggested that he, Melinda, and I should get together with some of the most generous givers in the country and see what we could learn from them. We started out by having dinners where everyone talked about why they give, what they are passionate about, and what they wish they could do better. The dinners evolved into discussions of the challenges of giving effectively. It became clear that there was a lot of collective knowledge and that we could inspire each other and in some cases work together. There was a strong sense we should broaden the discussion to a larger group including people who were earlier in their giving career.
This led to the idea of the Giving Pledge. It is simply a commitment to give the majority of your wealth away during your lifetime or through your will. We hope that over the long term it will encourage people to start earlier, collaborate more, and make their giving even more impactful.
We are excited that 58 people have already joined the Giving Pledge. You can see the letters describing their thinking about giving at www.givingpledge.org. The United States is the most generous country in the world. More than 15 percent of the large estates go to charity. That is significant, but there is room for that to increase. Warren has said, “We want the general level of giving to step up. We want the Pledge to help society become even more generous. We hope the norm will change towards even greater and smarter philanthropy.”
Although this effort is focused on those people in the United States with the greatest wealth, we are encouraged by and support similar efforts that focus on other groups. For example, some of the top business people in China and India asked if we would meet with them to stimulate discussion about giving in their country. Warren and I had the meeting in China in November and we were very happy with how many people came and how the conversation turned out. All three of us will be attending a similar meeting in India in the first half of the year.
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