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Airbnb Founders Sign Giving Pledge Along With 14 Others

By  Maria Di Mento
June 1, 2016

Seventeen more families and individuals have signed the Giving Pledge, including:

  • Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce.com, a cloud-computing company, and his wife Lynne
  • All three co-founders of Airbnb: Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk and his wife Elizabeth, a pediatrician
  • Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family
  • Niu Gensheng, founder of the Mengniu Dairy Company, who is the first from China’s mainland to join the effort.

The Giving Pledge was launched in 2010 by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates to encourage the world’s richest people to give at least half of their wealth to charity. It was originally created with 40 families in the United States and now includes 154 individuals and families in 16 countries.

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Seventeen more families and individuals have signed the Giving Pledge, including:

  • Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce.com, a cloud-computing company, and his wife Lynne
  • All three co-founders of Airbnb: Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk and his wife Elizabeth, a pediatrician
  • Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family
  • Niu Gensheng, founder of the Mengniu Dairy Company, who is the first from China’s mainland to join the effort.

The Giving Pledge was launched in 2010 by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates to encourage the world’s richest people to give at least half of their wealth to charity. It was originally created with 40 families in the United States and now includes 154 individuals and families in 16 countries.

Several others have just signed the pledge.

From the United States:

  • Scott Cook and Signe Ostby
  • Jack and Laura Dangermond
  • Robert and Arlene Kogod
  • Gary Michelson
  • Liz Simons and Mark Heising
  • Herbert and Nicole Wertheim

From elsewhere:

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  • Margaret and Sylvan Adams, of Israel
  • Henry Engelhardt and Diane Briere de L’Isle-Engelhardt, of Britain
  • Tom and Marion Hunter, of Britain
  • Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, of India
  • P.N.C. and Sobha Menon, of the United Arab Emirates
Read other items in this Tapping Into Silicon Valley Philanthropy package.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Fundraising from IndividualsMajor-Gift Fundraising
Maria Di Mento
Maria directs the annual Philanthropy 50, a comprehensive report on America’s most generous donors. She writes about wealthy philanthropists, arts organizations, key trends and insights related to high-net-worth donors, and other topics.
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