Billionaires Donating Half Their Wealth?

While Tommy Hilfiger's son gets arrested for marijuana possession and Rudy Giuliani's daughter gets cuffed for shoplifting at a beauty store, other rich folks are doing something constructive with their money and time.

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and billionaire investor Warren Buffett, each worth over $40 billion, have collaborated to pledge more than half of their wealth for charitable giving.

Despite Buffett's pledge to donate 99 percent of his wealth and Gates' philanthropic foundation holding $33 billion in assets, the two successful men vowed to raise $600 billion in charitable giving. The catch: convincing other wealthy Americans to donate portions of their wealth in their philanthropic adventure.

With their website The Giving Pledge, Buffett and Gates have successfully lobbied 40 billionaires to pledge their riches in the name of American philanthropy out of the 70 to 80 calls placed in their gigantic project. Among the 40 who pledged are:

• Michael Bloomberg
• Diane Von Furstenberg
• Barron Hilton
• George Lucas
• David Rockerfeller
• Ted Turner
• Paul Allen

[view the full list here]

Many donors on the list are renowned for their philanthropic work, so it wasn't that difficult to recruit people for their efforts. Some experts say the project will be deemed successful when they see donors who have not been on any other major donor lists.

Some of these pledges will be give anonymously or donate when they die, but the bulk of money raised by charities today comes from non-billionaires giving modest portions of $5, $10, or $50 at a time. In 2009, American philanthropy totaled to $300 billion in donations. In the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation alone, initiatives specializing in agriculture to education have been funded to help transform the world [read more about that here].


If this money go towards something the public could directly benefit from, like education reform, improving food quality, and creating affordable housing programs-- all the things the government refuses to take care of because they rather fund a war we're losing-- then this philanthropic work is something to applaud.