About 100 million Americans make New Year’s resolutions every year, many focused on money — specifically commitments to making or saving more of it. But for the segment of the population that already has a lot of money, we’d like to suggest a different approach in 2025: resolve not to get richer.
This isn’t another “eat the rich” rant, but rather a practical suggestion that many wealthy people we know adhere to and who feel it has enriched their lives in non-monetary ways.
The prevailing culture in the U.S. certainly prioritizes protecting and growing wealth. Many Americans idolize business titans such as Elon Musk, who recently became the first person with a net worth of more than $400 billion, even as he reportedly skimped on the charitable donations required of his foundation.
Even famously generous billionaires aren’t actually spending down their wealth. In 2023, the 25 biggest philanthropists gave away 2 percent of their net worth, while their collective fortunes grew by 44 percent to $1.35 trillion. That includes Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, two of the creators of the Giving Pledge, which encourages wealthy people to donate at least half their wealth to philanthropic causes. The two men have doubled and tripled their fortunes, respectively, since the pledge’s launch in 2010.
Understandably, most wealthy people aren’t inclined to relinquish all their money and follow in the footsteps of people like entrepreneur Dariel Garner who gave away a fortune of more than $100 million. Dariel told us that he now lives in a one-bedroom home in New Mexico and teaches nonviolent resistance full-time.
Wealth Reset
Fortunately, there is a middle-ground approach for those who feel some discomfort with their swelling incomes at a time of growing threats to our planet and democracy: If you are a person of means, consider taking a sabbatical this year from getting richer by donating the additional wealth you would otherwise accumulate.
We mean this literally. Calculate your net worth as of January 1, 2025, and then ensure that number doesn’t grow larger during the year. At year end, take stock of how you feel and assess whether the positives outweigh the negatives.
We’ve seen examples of people experimenting with this idea through our association with the Solidaire Network, which is made up of individual and institutional funders of social justice movements. One of us, Garrett, is a Solidaire member.
Shannon Cofrin Gaggero, whose inheritance helped her fortune balloon to eight-figures, donates 100 percent of her income from her job as a donor organizer at Solidaire and about 5 percent of her family’s assets. That commitment has prevented Shannon from getting much wealthier, while ensuring her principal is protected for current family needs.
Other Solidaire members aren’t as wealthy as Shannon but have still adopted a similar approach. One of them, Ellen Epstein, inherited $5 million when her parents passed away — much more than she’d ever had and more than she expected. Having always lived modestly, she was uneasy with this unearned wealth and initially considered giving it all away. Instead, she settled on a compromise: First, she moved the money out of the traditional investment firm where it resided and placed it with a values-aligned financial advisor. Then, she committed to giving away at least as much as she took to live on each year, even if it meant that her initial inheritance wouldn’t grow.
Ellen, who is partly retired, gives herself a monthly allowance — currently $10,000 — and adds an equivalent amount to her donor-advised fund. She then immediately distributes those funds to charitable organizations. “It feels important to me to be giving away at least as much as I’m living on, regardless of the impact on my net wealth,” Ellen told us. She also uses about $3,000 of her monthly allowance to donate outside of her DAF, and to share with friends in need.
The Trump Effect
Motivated by Donald Trump’s reelection, some donors have challenged themselves to give more than ever before. Activist Tema Okun was troubled by the post-election bump in her stock portfolio, which she interpreted as having personally profited from the election of a president whose policies would harm the communities and people she cared about. “I called the people who manage my money,” Tema recalled, “and asked them to calculate my gains [from election day] so that I could donate them out. It came to about $50,000, more than I ever imagined giving at one time in the past.”
Tema has since stretched that initial action into a longer-term commitment. In a December 2024 letter to other Solidaire members, she pledged to give away any stock market profits she realizes during Trump’s presidency to social justice movements. Through a pledge she calls “Resist Profiting from Authoritarianism,” Tema is encouraging other philanthropists to join her. More than a dozen people have signed on so far, which represents several million dollars in commitments.
Deborah Sagner, president of the Sagner Family Foundation, was among the first to join Tema as a signatory. “My foundation’s investment portfolio gained $1.5 million this year (2023),” Deborah wrote in an email. “I decided to give that all out in grants rather than grow the foundation. It was a scary and exhilarating experience to give more than I ever thought I could and in such a short time frame. This is a time for us to be brave and share the risk that our movement partners are facing.”
For Deborah, who is Jewish, Palestinian solidarity is a central motivator, and she prioritizes funding movement groups working toward lasting peace and justice. “I already have a $20 million foundation,” Deborah told us. “I don’t need this other $1.5 million on top of that in our endowment. I don’t need to keep growing it, when there is an ongoing genocide in Gaza and so much need.”
Regardless of whether one shares the political viewpoints or motivations of these donors, there is no shortage of people and organizations that need support. Some 37 percent of Americans can’t afford an unexpected expense of more than $400. Globally, nearly 700 million people live on less than $2.15 per day. Violence in all forms is rampant throughout the world, and the degradation of the planet is rapidly depleting precious resources.
The Power of Money
Those of us who have ever had excess wealth, whether a few hundred dollars or an armored van’s worth, like to imagine that the extra coins in our pockets aren’t connected to other people’s suffering. Yet the reality is that money always has power to change the lives of those who don’t have enough. And when we share wealth that we don’t need, our own lives often become better too.
As the American Dream and democratic ideals are increasingly overrun by extreme wealth inequality, a lot depends on how aggressively those who can afford to, choose to share.
If your resources allow, we hope you’ll try taking a sabbatical from getting richer this year. There’s a good chance you’ll find that what you gain outweighs what you lose. But if you don’t find it improves your life for the better, we can offer this guarantee: You’ll be no less rich than you were before, and your return to wealth accumulation is just a quick phone call or a few clicks of the mouse away.
And if you’re not wealthy enough to do this, we hope you’ll prioritize goals other than becoming fabulously rich. Perhaps one of those goals could be to share this idea with a loved one, friend, colleague, or benefactor whom you suspect has more than they need.
