Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy, have pledged $1 billion to charitable causes, with the biggest part aimed at expanding the number and type of people who pursue public-service careers.
A portion of the new commitment will support Rise, a new program they are creating with the Rhodes Trust, aimed at identifying and connecting young people 15 to 17 who want to dedicate their careers to public service and could do more to help others if they had access to more educational opportunities and to networks of like-minded people.
The Schmidts did not specify how much would go to Rise, but they said the money will go to a number of other philanthropic efforts they have created, including the Schmidt Family Foundation, Schmidt Futures, the 11th Hour Project, Schmidt Ocean Institute, 11th Hour Racing, and Schmidt Marine Technology Partners.
The Schmidts, whose net worth stands at $15 billion, according to Forbes, say the commitment announced today doubles their charitable giving. They said they have previously given away about $1 billion to charity but they haven’t done it publicly. They have appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy list of the biggest donors once, back in 2009, when they gave $25 million to Princeton. They have given only about $31 million to charity publicly since 2006.
They said they hope their new efforts, including the Rise program, will help young people who don’t typically have access to big scholarships and help connect them to other people and resources. While their focus is on those people who don’t come from affluent backgrounds, they have made it clear that they also want to encourage greater diversity of thinking in academic and public-service circles.
Eric Schmidt told Devex that when he was a graduate student he received National Science Foundation and Darpa grants but said that would likely be impossible now if he were a student today. He said that is not only because the competition for such government grants has skyrocketed but because they are more likely to be awarded to people who fall in line with current thinking in a field.
“If you’re kind of wild and crazy, you’re highly unlikely to get them, but if you look at the greatest discoveries, they’re always from left field. They’re always surprising,” said Schmidt. “One idea we have is in a people-first strategy where you’re looking for people who have unusually good skills that may not be the same way of thinking as the dominant thinking in an area.
Correction: This article has been updated to say more precisely where the money would go.
