Mega Donor Values Warren Buffett (Part 6 of a series)

Mega Donor Values Warren Buffett (Part 6 of a series)

By Tom Wilson Major Gifts Guru

This article is part of an ongoing series of excerpts and insights from the recent biography The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business Life by Alice Schroeder. I encourage you to buy this book to get the full story.

"As Warren Buffett started to realize the immensity of the task of giving away 5% of what his eventual foundation’s assets, he began to train his children by funding their foundations every year, and by starting to think about Bill Gates as a trustee.

“Bill Gates is the most rational guy around in terms of his foundation. He and Melinda are saving more lives in terms of dollars spent than anyone else. They’ve worked enormously hard on it. He thinks extremely well. He reads thousands of pages a year on philanthropy and health care. You couldn’t have two better people running things. They have done incredible work, they’ve thought it through, their values are right, their logic is right.”

Earlier in the book there was a discussion of coattailing when investing. Watching someone you admire and copying their investment patterns.

“’He’s (Gates) got people in place. And if we gave some money to him, the last half of the money would be used as intelligently as the firt half. There would be very little falloff in utility of the last dollar versus the firs dollar. Giving money to other foundations, it’s not just what foundation like to do. But there’s nothing wrong with copying good people.’ Coattailing by giving some of the money to the Gates Foundation.”

This article is part of series. To read the other articles in the series, please click the links below:

Permanent Link: Mega Donor Values Warren Buffett (Part 6 of a series)

http://majorgiftsguru.com/2009/08/mega-donor-values-warren-buffett-part-6.html

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