A New Way Of Giving

Our generosity may be the best measure of our humanity. To become fabulously wealthy, to win great fame--these are triumphs not of humanity but of vanity. For the past two decades of robust economic growth, Americans have too often reveled in that vanity. We are the richest, strongest, smartest nation on earth. We have produced more millionaires (2 1/2 million) and billionaires (267) than any other nation. We have discovered more cures and launched more new technologies. But are those the measures that matter?

Perhaps what really matters is this: we give more than any other nation. We are the most generous with our time and our money. Just 13% of German respondents and 19% of French volunteered their time for civic activities in the previous year, in contrast to 49% of Americans, according to a survey by the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. And while 43% of French and 44% of Germans said they gave money to charity last year, 73% of Americans reported doing so. To be sure, many prosperous Europeans and Japanese pay far higher taxes than Americans, in part to finance social-welfare programs. Yet the private efforts of Americans make an impressive addition to what they do through government. Charitable gifts by Americans totaled $190 billion in 1999--equivalent to one-third of the domestic federal budget, or 2% of our national income.

That's far from a biblical tithe, but still the highest level in 28 years. Why? For many years, the multimillionaires of the booming technology industries didn't feel very secure in their newfound wealth and weren't at a point in their lives where they thought much about their legacies. Now that's changing. Silicon Valley CEOs, along with other newly rich Americans, are finally stepping up to the collection plate. And just as they've transformed American business, members of this new generation are changing the way philanthropy is done. Most are very hands on. They do lots of research before giving. They demand accountability and results. Paul Schervisch and John Havens, authors of a Boston College study on giving, cite the $41 trillion that aging baby boomers will be leaving to their heirs and charities as a philanthropic gold rush. The high-tech boom has made more people richer faster than at any other time in history--which means that more of the superrich are thinking about giving away their fortunes at an earlier age. Schervisch and Havens write that "a golden era of philanthropy is dawning."

You have to go back nearly a century to find philanthropy that compares in scale and scope to the giving of today's tycoons. Names like Carnegie, Ford and Rockefeller are synonymous with fabulous wealth and technological innovation as well as a societal flowering that brought forth libraries, hospitals and universities. Foreign visitors to New York City are often surprised to learn that each of its great museums was built with private money. America's intellectual infrastructure was donated by philanthropists as well as created by public spending. And just as Gilded Age tycoons left a legacy of great institutions of learning and culture, today's billionaires are seeking out causes for which their dollars can make a difference.