If you read CNN.com or the Wall Street Journal, you’ve likely run across a headline this week about Warren Buffet and Bill Gates (who have already given away a significant portion of their fortunes) issuing a challenge to the wealthiest individuals to do the same and give away 50% of their wealth. This challenge, called 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 the philanthropic causes and charitable organizations of their choice either during their lifetime or after their death.”
All this capital adds up to a LOT of money, and instead of giving it away purely as charity, what if the funds were instead used to seed a social PE firm, one that would work in conjunction with social VC firms to sustainably support social entrepreneurship? If you have any interest in the intersection of social good and sustainable methods of fostering social enterprises, you should definitely read Nathaniel Whittemore’s latest Change.org blog post: “Why the Gates-Buffett Billionaires Should Create a Social Private Equity Firm.”
Photo credit: Mark Peterson, via Fortune Magazine / CNN’s “The $600 billion challenge.”
