The Givers

An inside look at the secretive world of elite philanthropists--and how they're quietly wielding ever more power to shape American life in ways both good and bad. While media attention focuses on famous philanthropists such as Bill Gates and Charles Koch, thousands of donors are at work below the radar promoting a wide range of causes. David Callahan charts the rise of these new power players and the ways they are converting the fortunes of a second Gilded Age into influence. He shows how this elite works behind the scenes on education, the environment, science, LGBT rights, and many other issues--with deep impact on government policy. Above all, he shows that the influence of the Givers is only just beginning, as new waves of billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg turn to philanthropy. Based on extensive research and interviews with countless donors and policy experts, this is not a brief for or against the Givers, but a fascinating investigation of a power shift in American society that has implications for us all.

"David Callahan has performed a public service by assembling a striking body of information on a fundamental aspect of 21st-century America." —Robert G. Kaiser, The Washington Post

"Callahan offers a peek inside a rarefied, poorly understood world with ever greater power to remake the broader world." —Michelle Cottle, The New York Times Book Review

"A convincing argument. . . . Callahan is intimately familiar with today’s living donors and how they are spending their money, and his book is replete with examples of philanthropists that are upending the democratic process." —Alana Semuels, The Atlantic

"[A] fascinating look into perhaps one of the least understood trends in the public square." —Dan Kaplan, Booklist (Starred Review)

"An intriguing look at the world of big-ticket philanthropy. . . . An eye-opening view of a vast sector of the economy that lies in the shadows but has undue influence, for ill or good." —Kirkus

Autorentext

DAVID CALLAHAN is the author of seven previous nonfiction books including The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead and Fortunes of Change: The Rise of the Liberal Rich and the Remaking America. He is founder and editor of the media site Inside Philanthropy, and co-founder of the national think tank Demos. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post, and he is a frequent media commentator. He is a graduate of Hampshire College and holds a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University.

Klappentext

An inside look at the secretive world of elite philanthropists-and how they're quietly wielding ever more power to shape American life in ways both good and bad.

While media attention focuses on famous philanthropists such as Bill Gates and Charles Koch, thousands of donors are at work below the radar promoting a wide range of causes. David Callahan charts the rise of these new power players and the ways they are converting the fortunes of a second Gilded Age into influence. He shows how this elite works behind the scenes on education, the environment, science, LGBT rights, and many other issues-with deep impact on government policy. Above all, he shows that the influence of the Givers is only just beginning, as new waves of billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg turn to philanthropy. Based on extensive research and interviews with countless donors and policy experts, this is not a brief for or against the Givers, but a fascinating investigation of a power shift in American society that has implications for us all.

Zusammenfassung
An inside look at the secretive world of elite philanthropists—and how they're quietly wielding ever more power to shape American life in ways both good and bad.

While media attention focuses on famous philanthropists such as Bill Gates and Charles Koch, thousands of donors are at work below the radar promoting a wide range of causes. David Callahan charts the rise of these new power players and the ways they are converting the fortunes of a second Gilded Age into influence. He shows how this elite works behind the scenes on education, the environment, science, LGBT rights, and many other issues—with deep impact on government policy. Above all, he shows that the influence of the Givers is only just beginning, as new waves of billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg turn to philanthropy. Based on extensive research and interviews with countless donors and policy experts, this is not a brief for or against the Givers, but a fascinating investigation of a power shift in American society that has implications for us all.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

The Coming of Big Philanthropy

As Michael Bloomberg prepared to step down as mayor of New York City, after twelve years on the job, he said that among his goals after leaving office was to start running outside again, which hadn’t been practical with a security detail while mayor. He also said he wanted to “sleep in a bit.” Bloomberg had spent years waking up at six a.m. and working till ten p.m. or eleven p.m. at night. Just after leaving office, in January 2014, he and his partner, Diana Taylor, headed off to Hawaii and New Zealand for a two-week vacation—his first real vacation in over a decade.

Later, as Bloomberg settled into his post-mayoral life, it became clear that he wouldn’t be relaxing much. Bloomberg soon plunged back into the day-to-day management of his massive media company, Bloomberg L.P. In less than a year, the CEO of the company, Daniel Doctoroff, would be gone as Bloomberg reasserted his control.

Bloomberg also turned to philanthropy in a bigger way after he left office. Even as he amassed great wealth, starting in the 1980s, Bloomberg had always planned to give away most of that money. He lived extravagantly, to be sure, owning a private jet and some thirteen properties around the world by 2013—which included estates in London, Bermuda, the Hamptons, and Westchester County—but he gave on an equally large level.

Bloomberg had no interest in an older model of philanthropy, whereby business titans waited to the end of their lives or left the job to their heirs. Instead, he believed in giving as much as he could while still alive, a logic he pushed to other donors.

Bloomberg once recalled how, in the 1990s, he talked to a wealthy benefactor who planned to leave Johns Hopkins University $50 million upon his death. “But I asked him: Why wait? Why deny financial aid to this generation? Why deny a possible cure for a disease to this generation?” The donor changed his mind, giving all the money immediately. Over many years, Bloomberg himself channeled some $1 billion to Johns Hopkins, his alma mater. In a 2010 public statement about his giving intentions, Bloomberg had written “that the reality of great wealth is that you can’t spend it and you can’t take it with you.”

Bloomberg’s fortune is vast indeed. When he started his media company, which came to dominate the market for financial data, he covered many of the start-up costs himself, drawing on a large severance package he had gotten from his former Wall Street employer, Salomon Brothers. Later, Bloomberg bought back stakes in his company from other early investors. As a result, he ended up owning 88 percent of a company that now has nineteen thousand employees and $9 billion in annual revenue. During his years as mayor, the value of the company had grown steadily. Bloomberg was worth just under $5 billion as he took office in 2002. By the time he left, that figure had soared to $33 billion. Within two years of leaving City Hall, his wealth had climbed higher …