She might get burned on such a yolo-giving, $8B per year is quite a lot. George Soros talked a lot about how hard it is to give money, how it corrupts both parties (both the donor and the grantee). Gates tried hard to eradicate polio, and failed at that, now he's an anti-vax meme.
This will irk a lot of people here, but frankly the government is a pretty good nonprofit, as far as nonprofits go.
It's unclear at this point how effective is her style of giving. But it seems like she is aware of the potential of corruption, and by moving nimbly and only giving one-time donations, it might help reduce the patron-charity dynamic.
As for other billionaires failing their ambitious goals, I think that is normal, because their goals are more ambitious than their massive fortune. To put things in perspective, US government spends trillions of dollars a year, and the country still has many problems.
I don’t think she particularly cares about measuring the effectiveness of her altruism.
> “What do we think they might do with more cash on hand than they expected?” Scott asked in her June blog post. “Hire a few extra team members they know they can pay for the next five years. Buy chairs for them. Stop having to work every weekend. Get some sleep.”
My wild ass guess is that she’s hoping her firehose of money will do more good in a shorter amount of time versus spending a lot of time fine tuning the giving.
I think a lot of billionaire philanthropists see their giving as almost like a kind of investment, and some of them want to see a return on that investment that is above the average return from the average non-billionaire giver. That in turn causes the recipient to spend at least some time thinking about how to make that billionaire feel like they got a good return.
It sounds like McKenzie-Scott’s idea of giving is more hands off, identifying teams that had a history of doing good work, and giving them both resources and mental space to execute.
> It sounds like McKenzie-Scott’s idea of giving is more hands off, identifying teams that had a history of doing good work, and giving them both resources and mental space to execute.
I think there's something to be said for this. It's clear none of those people were in it for the money, the prestige, and are passionate enough about that they would risk their health for an unknown gain (its often very hard to measure whether or not your one night of sleeping less actually made the world better). Receiving a one-time donation of someone of MacKenzie's stature not only gives them breathing room but also puts them on the map as a charity a billionaire "invested" into.
Soros writes extensively. I've not found a specific comment matching the description above, though this essay discusses his philanthropic activities, goals, and strategies at length:
That is a good essay. And yeah Soros wrote quite a bit, his writing is very good though seems convoluted/chaotic at times.
The quote about "corruption" was from some interview with him, I'll link it if I find it, though you know how hard it is to search videos like that.
Also, this provides a stark comparison to Mackenzie's style of giving: Over thirty years I have contributed more than $8 billion to the worldwide network of Open Society Foundations. It tool Soros 30 years to give $8B, while she did it in 1 year.
Over the years, starting with his experience in wartime Hungary, he had developed all the instincts of an outsider; he was distrustful of government, disdainful of the establishment, allergic to institutions generally. Traditional foundations did not escape his contempt. He saw them as too bureaucratic to respond in a timely way to real need; laden with overhead, which benefitted the givers instead of the recipients; and inherently corrupting, almost demanding to be exploited. (“They go against human nature,” Soros says, “which is to take and not to give.”) This last point was particularly nettlesome for him, inasmuch as he is a singularly untrusting person, intent on not allowing others to take advantage of him.
> Gates tried hard to eradicate polio, and failed at that, now he's an anti-vax meme.
I'm not particularly well informed here, but my impression was that the gates foundation has been a relatively successful organization in terms of improving living conditions on a variety of issues. Saying he's an anti-vax meme is irrelevant.
Failed to achieve the goal... you do know that Afghanistan has polio... At some point there's only so much you can do despite even having the US army there.
My point isn't that the failure invalidates Gates's approach or attempts. If you succeed at everything you try, you're not taking any risks.
My point is that the failure has become fuel for critics, who would quite likely find any possible basis to make such criticisms.
(I'm not uncritical of Gates myself, nor do I consider myself a fan. He ran a highly successful business unethically and illegally. He's been a major philanthropist. His campaigns have a mixed record (see comment re: risks above), with some successes and some failures. The policies he pursues are often self-serving, especially regarding software and intellectual property rights.)
This will irk a lot of people here, but frankly the government is a pretty good nonprofit, as far as nonprofits go.