The billionaire who will die ‘broke’

The 2 video’s in this post show you the  story of Chuck Feeney (one is 1,2 minutes, the other 13 minutes). A billionaire who had a one goal: To give away his entire multi-billion dollar fortune while he was still living.

The 89-year-old American businessman has now achieved that, donating almost $9 billion worldwide.

Who is Chuck Feeney?

Charles F Feeney was born in New Jersey in 1931, during the Great Depression.
His mother worked as a hospital nurse and his father was an insurance underwriter

Charles Feeney is the co-founder of Duty Free Shoppers. Since its start in 1960, Duty Free Shoppers now operates in eleven major airports and twenty Galleria stores.

The success of his company has allowed Feeney to amass billions.
While you might imagine, then, that he’s living a life of opulence, you are mistaken. The now 89-year-old has lived the life of frugality. He lives in a modest apartment in San Francisco with his wife, wears a ten-dollar watch, and doesn’t even own a car. When he travels, he always flies coach.

“The James Bond of Philanthropy”

Feeney has operated his entire adult life on the principle that if you can’t take your wealth with you, why not give it all away while you still have control of where it goes? This way, you can see the impact it has on the world with your own eyes.

Chuck Feeney started a collection of private foundations called Atlantic Philanthropies. Through his foundations, he has given billions of dollars to a number of causes. He made every one of these donations anonymously. For this reason, Forbes magazine has called him “the James Bond of Philanthropy”.

The closure of his foundations

The goal, however, with Atlantic Philanthropies was never to stay in operation forever. In fact, the organization’s end-date was planned years in advance. Feeney did not want to wait until after his death to give away money.

Atlantic Philanthropies’ specific closure date afforded the organization two important details: urgency and discipline. They had a hard deadline by which they had to give away all their money, forcing them to make decisions and make high-risk, high-impact donations.

Finally, on September 14, 2020, Feeney officially signed the papers to shut down Atlantic Philanthropies. The organization had given away over eight billion dollars and was out of money. Of course, that was the plan from the start. Feeney left himself a retirement sum of two million dollars for he and his wife, meaning that he has given away 375 thousand percent more money than his current net worth.

Where Did All the Money Go?

Feeney has given 3.7 billion dollars to education, more than 870 million dollars to human rights and social change, and 62 million dollars in grants to abolish the death penalty in the US.

He gave more than seven hundred million dollars in gifts to health, including 270 million dollars to improve public healthcare in Vietnam, and 176 million dollars to the Global Brain Health Institute in California.

In the early 1990s, Feeney met in secret with parliamentary forces in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He urged them to drop armed guerrilla conflict and promised them financial support if they embraced electoral politics.

Grants from Atlantic Philanthropies also paid to provide access to antiretroviral treatment for AIDS in South Africa. Another 600 million dollars went to the Atlantic Fellows initiative, which supported young emerging leaders working in their countries for healthier, more equitable societies.

His last major project, which used up the final sum of money left with the foundation, was a 700 million dollar grant to Feeney’s alma mater, Cornell University. 350 million dollars is for the school to build a technology campus on New York City’s Roosevelt Island. The remaining half will be put towards supporting students doing community service work.

Inspiring Others

Mr. Feeney’s actions have inspired other billionaires to re-think the way they do philanthropy work. His generosity encouraged Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to launch the Giving Pledge in 2010. The pledge is a campaign to convince the world’s wealthiest people to give away at least half of their fortunes before they die.