Betting On Tomorrow

Nathan Arizona for The Chronicle

The nation’s biggest philanthropists are looking to the future — often with a wary eye.

Many of the 50 biggest donors of 2018 are tackling topics with a futurist bent, such as artificial intelligence and privacy concerns related to technology use. Others on the list are making more traditional bets — on issues such as poverty, education, and social mobility — but are creating new strategies that reflect their willingness to stay committed for longer periods.

“There’s a lot of anxiety about the future right now,” says Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy and author of the forthcoming Giving Done Right: Effective Philanthropy and Making Every Dollar Count. “Whether it’s artificial intelligence or gun violence or the lack of economic and social mobility, there’s a lot to worry about. Maybe we’re seeing that anxiety about the future playing out in choices about giving.”

While this kind of giving shows growing sophistication among donors, he notes that “we should be careful not to assume that just because philanthropists have wealth that they have special insight as fortune tellers.”

The people on the Philanthropy 50 — the Chronicle’s annual list of the biggest U.S. donors — collectively gave more than $7.8 billion last year. That’s a mighty sum, yet it’s a little more than half of the $14.7 billion the top 50 donors gave in 2017. Whether the reduced giving reflected a greater sense of caution about the state of the world is unclear. What is certain from the nature of those gifts, however, is their deep concern about the future.

Bezoses and Bloomberg Top Chronicle List of the 50 Donors Who Gave the Most to Charity

The total big donors gave was $7.8 billion, a sharp drop from the 14.7 billion donated in 2017. The causes philanthropists supported are evolving, with more wealthy Americans looking for ways to shape the world’s uncertain future.

• Philanthropy 50: Where They Live, Where They Give, and More
• ‘Forbes 400' and ‘Giving Pledge’ Billionaires Who Gave Big in 2018
• Billionaire Stephen Schwarzman Explains What’s Next After $390 Million Giving Spree

Artificial intelligence is among the hottest areas attracting superrich donors’ attention. In 2018, the private-equity titan Stephen Schwarzman (No. 4 on the Philanthropy 50) gave $350 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a computing college with a focus on A.I. The entrepreneur Amin Khoury (tied for No. 35) gave $50 million for a similar project at Northeastern University. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (No. 6), who died in October, gave $125 million to his own Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

Robert Kissane, chairman of consulting firm CCS Fundraising, says these philanthropists and others are looking to quicken the pace of discoveries that might otherwise be decades away.

“They’re asking, How do you accelerate the future?” Kissane says. “If we’re on pace to cure diseases or develop precision medicine or create autonomous vehicles, how can we get there in eight years instead of 25?”

Machines With Common Sense

The Allen Institute is working on a project that has bedeviled artificial-intelligence researchers for decades — how to create smart machines that possess common sense. Allen’s support will keep the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence around “for the long haul,” and it has no current plans to raise outside funding, says Oren Etzioni, its chief executive. Etzioni hopes for research breakthroughs in the near term but isn’t counting on them.

“One of my favorite sayings is, ‘Don’t mistake a clear view for a short distance,’ " Etzioni says. “We could see some remarkable things — self-driving cars that reduce accidents, medical systems that reduce physician error and help identify new cures for disease — but it’s going to take a long time to get there, often longer than people anticipate.”

AlixPartners

Artificial intelligence is causing anxiety as well as excitement — and that’s true even of the donors who support A.I. research. Schwarzman wants to see better analysis of A.I. before it’s released on the world, and he fears that rogue states could use quantum computing to hack into encrypted data used by banks and the federal government.

“I think this is one of the most important and impactful issues facing society — and not just in the U.S. — over the next 20 to 30 years,” Schwarzman says. “I’m trying to help mobilize the focus on A.I. development and the ethical issues to address this powerful new technology.”

Privacy Concerns

It’s not just A.I. that donors are worried about. Several tech billionaires are concerned about the privacy of individual data collected by digital products, such as Facebook and text messaging.

Nelson Family photo

Brian Acton (tied for No. 35), co-founder of WhatsApp, a mobile messaging app acquired by Facebook for $19 billion, gave $50 million in 2018 to the Signal Foundation, which makes an encrypted communications app. Acton, who left Facebook in 2017, also became Signal’s executive chairman.

“Our plan is to pioneer a new model of technology nonprofit focused on privacy and data protection for everyone, everywhere,” Acton wrote in a blog post announcing the gift.

Evan Williams (No. 20), a co-founder of Twitter, and his wife, Sara, gave more than $100.3 million to their foundation in 2018 to back a variety of nonprofits they’ve supported in the past, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Data & Society Research Institute — two charities focused on digital privacy.

Media and Democracy

Craig Newmark (No. 11), the founder of Craigslist, the online marketplace, gave $143.8 million to his foundation and donor-advised fund in 2018. Through his philanthropies he awarded $20 million last year to create the Markup, a nonprofit news organization that investigates how companies are using technology in ways that impact people and society.

Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, and his wife, Pam (No. 3), continue to funnel money into the growing number of organizations associated with the nonprofit arm of their Omidyar Network. In 2018, Omidyar spun off what had been its governance and citizen engagement programs into Luminate, which is both a charity and an LLC. (The latter is used to make for-profit investments.)

The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation

In 2019, Luminate expects to make around $65 million in grants and investments in its four impact areas — civic empowerment, data and digital rights, financial transparency, and independent media. On the heels of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Luminate is urging the creation of government policies that provide “data rights” specifying how an individual’s data can be used.

“The challenges we are working on are long-term and systemic in nature,” says Stephen King, Luminate’s chief executive.

Eric Kessler, senior managing director at Arabella Advisors, says he believes a dystopian vision has taken hold in society. Whether philanthropists share that pessimism or are more optimistic, they’re looking to make gifts that lead to long-term improvements.

“All of the philanthropists we work with at Arabella are concerned about the future,” he says. “Some of that comes from a place of optimism, and some of that comes from a real and deep concern for the direction of the world, in issues like civic engagement and climate change and educational success.”

Fundraiser Opportunities

Opportunities exist for fundraisers who build relationships with donors who have concerns about the future and need a concrete plan for addressing the problem.

Schwarzman, for example, became concerned about artificial intelligence after long discussions about the topic with prominent tech executives. That provided an opening for MIT’s president to present a plan for Schwarzman to make the lead gift on a new $1 billion computing college that may eventually shape artificial-intelligence research throughout higher education.

“Donors don’t wake up in the morning with the whole idea,” Kissane says. “They need a partnering entity that can shape it and make it real.”