Yours for the Asking: An Indispensable Guide to Fundraising and Management

by Reynold Levy

Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist who is leading an effort to eliminate poverty and vastly reduce mortality and morbidity in the Third World, dreams grandly: According to Forbes magazine, there are some 950 billionaires in the world, with an estimated combined wealth of $3.5 trillion. Even after all the yachts, mansions and luxury living that money can buy many times over, these billionaires will still have nearly $3.5 trillion to save the world. Suppose they pooled their wealth, as [Warren] Buffett has done with Bill and Melinda Gates. By standard principles of foundation management, a $3.5 trillion endowment would have a 5% payout of about $175 billion a year, an amount sufficient to extend basic health care to all in the poorest world; end massive pandemics of AIDS, TB and malaria; jump-start an African Green Revolution; end the digital divide; and address the crying need for safe drinking water for 1 billion people. In short, this billionaire’s foundation would be enough to end extreme poverty itself.