If you were fabulously wealthy, you could give away engraved iPads and $10,000 personal checks to your employees. Or, if you’re Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, you could get all your super fabulously rich friends to give away all their money.
The Microsoft co-founder and America’s most famous investor are rallying up their billionaire friends to pledge at least 50% of their wealth to philanthropy during their lives and in their wills. They’ve already reached out Oprah Winfrey, Ted Turner and George Soros.
According to the GivingPledge website, “The Giving Pledge is an effort to invite the wealthiest individuals and families in America to commit to giving the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.” Philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad were among the first to accept the challenge.
Buffett has already pledged to give away 99% of his wealth. Earlier this week, Gates and Mexican media mogul Carlos Slim announced that they were teaming up with Spain to give $150 million to fight malnutrition, dengue, malaria and other health problems in Latin America.
If all the billionaires on the Forbes billionaires list participated, the total donation would amount to whopping $600 billion.
Now that’s a sweet tax-deductible donation.
