I am an only child, born in 1922. I attended a Quaker school, was a conscientious objector in WW2, and joined the Quakers in 1942, sharing Quaker concerns for social harmony and social justice. My father built up a successful grocery business from 1907, which... More

My wife Judy and I don’t aim to give a specific percentage of our income--we simply give each year as we feel led. Only when I prepare our tax return do we see what the total represents. I firmly believe that proportionate giving is what we are supposed... More

Political activism for social justice has always been an important part of our life. We both became radicals while we were still in high school in the 1960’s and were deeply involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements. After we married, we... More

The world is out of balance. We need to support the divine feminine parts of life that are much more loving and peaceful. When it comes to giving, that means breaking through the isolation and barriers that often exist between and among donors and... More

My philanthropic journey began in 1968, when as a college junior I inherited a couple million dollars from my mother. After hesitant efforts to give some of it away, I was transformed by encounters in the 1970s with Haymarket People’s Fund and Gay... More

My family’s wealth came from grain mills my great-grandfather started along the Mississippi in the 1850s. My great grandfather before that and his sons fought at Lexington Green and relatives were involved in abolition, women’s suffrage, and an... More

When I married Justin he had a dog and I had a car; neither one of us had any money. Justin had been a monk at the Christian Brothers Winery, so he went to work as a vineyard and winery consultant. He had a client who agreed to match our meager income with... More

When I was quite young, my father found $100 by a roadside. He brought the money home. Over dinner he asked the family, “How should we give it away?” I’ve been tremendously fortunate to grow up with inherited wealth in a philanthropic... More

When I was twenty-five, I inherited a lot of money. I’m not sure exactly how much, but I know it would be worth millions today. I wasn’t given any direction in how to use it. I was literally handed an envelope filled with stock certificates.... More

Deciding to give it all was easy. I was an early partner in RSVP, the first tour company to give gay and lesbian people a spectacular and harassment-free vacation. After 16 years in the business I sold my share to one of the partners. The very day I... More

In 1982, I was 25 years old, living in NYC, doing international banking in the Asia Pacific region for Chase Manhattan. I didn’t love banking – nor was I particularly good at it. One day a friend invited me to something called “The Ending... More

Over the past three years, I’ve completely transformed myself as a giver. Previously, I was the uninspired yet loyal trustee of our family foundation. Although our grant-making was generous and thoughtful, the process seemed perfunctory, not nearly... More

“Mom, I want to do community service in Africa this summer and I really want you to come with me.” My daughter had been doing community service in San Francisco for years and was ready to take her passion to a global level and she wanted me to... More

Home. I help people find them and let them go. On paper, it’s a business transaction, but the journey literally hits home in a deeply personal way. My own childhood home was in Scottsdale, Arizona. I was the 9th of 10 children, and one of only two... More

For 20 years I have given over $1 million a year to the Abraham Fund Initiatives, which I founded to support co-existence in Israel among Jews and Arabs. Of my annual giving of $4-5 million, I give 2/3 to co-existence projects and 1/3 to Jewish projects. ... More

When I was 44, I could have received a substantial inheritance. Instead, I persuaded my dad to change his estate plans so nearly all the money went directly into a charitable foundation. In the years before and after my father’s death I’ve... More

Our family has begun to deploy as much as 99 percent of our fortune to bring prosperity to Central America, home to some of the poorest people in the Western Hemisphere. For 20 years, beginning in 1980 in Boston, I tried my luck as a computer software... More

My wealth was serendipitous from the beginning. In 1912, my father began delivering packages at age 12 for a small start-up company that became the United Parcel Service. He stayed with UPS most of his life, and when he died in 1964, left $250,000 to my... More

I got started young in philanthropy and service. I was seven when I organized my first fundraiser, a lemonade stand with neighborhood kids. My parents, who required all of us children to contribute 10% of our allowances to charity, were very philanthropic. ... More

I was 21 when I found out that I was inheriting far more money than I would ever need to live on. I was glad to have money to use for good ends. Yet I didn't want the money to define me or how others thought of me. I enjoyed and valued the work I was doing,... More

My late wife was a philanthropist and anti-racism activist. Her accidental death in 1996 propelled me into a shocking new identity as a person with wealth. To live a meaningful life as a person of wealth, I threw myself into a crash self-help program that... More

I live to give. Since inheriting money from my mother in 1996, I have given away nearly $35 million. I’m 78 and I’m pedaling as fast as I can to give it all away before I die. I was lucky not to be raised in a wealthy family. I know what it... More

Our giving is grounded in our Christian faith. We have been blessed to learn from wise people, starting with our parents, who know how to incorporate sound values into all money practices. Every budget is really a moral statement highlighting... More

In my 45 years of working as an insurance claims examiner/supervisor, I never earned more than $45,000 a year. But I lived frugally, invested well, and built up a sizable retirement account. Since retiring a few years ago, I have gleefully discovered I can... More

In 1979, my father told me had inherited many millions. I decided to give it to social change projects. Here’s why: I had a vision of a gift economy (gift-economy.com) based on women’s values. I felt so strongly about this vision that I wanted to... More

I was once a theoretical physicist. Now I'm an anarchist and opposed to the growing division of rich and poor. I'm 82 years old. A few years ago I left my old life behind, put my house in a trust to benefit the community, and moved to Oaxaca, Mexico, where... More

My wife and I have given $3 million – almost all our business profits over the past 13 years – in loans that help poor people start businesses. Living happily on our Social Security checks gives us the slack to give away more. In mid-life, my... More

I recently passed all the assets of the Oregon portion of our family foundation to two community organizations, freeing myself from my job of philanthropist. For over two decades, philanthropy had been my deeply satisfying work ... but then it became time... More

The network technology company I founded went public in 1990. Previously, my wife Carol and I had not given much beyond $100 checks to direct mail appeals; now we could give in the thousands and tens of thousands. The breakthrough in our philanthropy in both... More

Before my mom died in 1991, she changed her will so that my sister and I could choose, if we wished, to give our inheritances charitably instead of taking them personally. Which we both did. Since then, I’ve given over 50% of my net worth, mostly to... More

My wise and beloved father once said to me, “Don’t ever invade the principal. Before you know it you could be reckless and lose everything!” I heard him, but long after he died I broke through that barrier and it scared the "h-" out of... More

As a passionate environmentalist, John Hunting believes the time to give is now. When he inherited $130M from the office furniture company his father started, he committed nearly all of it to the Beldon Fund for environmental grantmaking. Instead of paying... More

I recently retired. For the next few years I have a financial windfall coming in – from an arrangement that was set up decades ago, when a company on whose board I served let me defer compensation and put it into stock. My wife and I decided to give... More

My husband and I were activists working with many groups, for peace and justice. We contributed money to these groups but mostly we ‘sat on’ our money. We kept waiting for the issue, or the opportunity significant enough to give half of our... More

In 1999, I sold my company, At-A-Glance, to Mead Paper Co. for $550 million. Shortly thereafter, my wife Dorothy and I decided to pledge or give a majority of it away since most of our needs were taken care of. My first advice about philanthropy came from... More

To my amazement, I’m now 88 years old; I don’t know how I got here. So many elderly people sit around having their cocktails and going to Florida, not really being alive. I want to continue to count for something no matter that I do feel my... More

Fifty years ago when the family stock was sold and we were about to get $2 million [over $8 million in today’s dollars] my husband and I looked at each other, “We don’t want to be that rich.” So we gave away half, finding a foundation... More

Following in my dad’s footsteps, I started a business that made me a millionaire by age 29. I was ruthless at making money and proud to be able to buy anything imaginable. I didn’t realize the downside, until my wife and kids left me for taking... More

I was involved with the corporate world for over 40 years, as CEO in several companies, management consultant, and college lecturer. In 2001, a little company I had a stake in became successful and began paying dividends. Five years later the company was... More

I came to the U.S. when I was five, fleeing France with my family two hours ahead of the German army. This experience may have helped to shape my social conscience. As a young man, my father pushed me toward sciences and engineering, so I became a mechanical... More

My parents didn't have a lot of money for much of their lives, but were generous nonetheless. My father's business became successful, and when I sold my share in 1984 I had considerable wealth. I had been working as a lawyer and investing my earnings, so I... More

In the 1970s I was in India studying with my guru, Maharaji. One day he called me in and said, "Your father has a lot of money. . . . You are not to accept an inheritance." I was startled by his mandate, but it felt right to me. I hadn't been aware that I... More

I’m 77 now, and have been giving substantially from my inheritances since I was 32. Since 1997, I’ve been giving $200,000+/year, 50% of my adjusted gross income. I’ve been inspired to be a giver, first, by my Christian faith: I was a... More

I'm not wealthy. I make my living as a mathematics professor at Northern Virginia Community College, plus two other part-time jobs, one as an editor and the other as a janitor. I earn in total a little over $100,000 per year. For the past ten years... More

I am a retired businessman who has spent most of my last 20 years as a social entrepreneur in building nonprofits, personal service, and philanthropy. In the early 1980s I got the idea that I would devote half my time and resources to helping other people,... More

My goal is to bring safe drinking water to 200 million people by the year 2022. So far I’ve volunteered ten years of my full-time energy and given $7 million (half my wealth) towards that goal- -and at age 73, I’m having the most interesting... More