James Bond of Philanthropy' Gives Away the Last of His Fortune
As it happens, Donald J. Trump is not the only person to announce plans to shut
down a personal philanthropy, just the best known.This is the story of a man who
made and kept that same promise.
Nearly five years ago, Charles F. Feeney sat in a cushy armchair in an
apartment on the east side of Manhattan, grandchildren's artwork taped to the
walls, and said that by the end of 2016, he was going to hand out the last of a great
fortune that he had made.
It was a race: Mr. Feeney was then 81, and Atlantic Philanthropies, a collection
of private foundations he had started and funded, still had about $1.5 billion left.
Flinging money out the window or writing checks willy-nilly was not Mr. Feeney's way.
Last month, Mr. Feeney and Atlantic completed the sprint and made a final grant,
$7 million to Cornell University, to support students doing community service work.
He had officially emptied his pockets, meeting his aspiration of "giving while living."
Altogether, he had contributed $8 billion to his philanthropies, which
have supported higher education, public health, human rights and scientific research.
"You're always nervous handling so much money, but we seem to have worked it pretty
well,"
Mr. Feeney, now 85, said last week in a phone interview. His remaining personal net
worth is slightly more than $2 million. That's not quite broke, by any standard, but
it is a modest amount for a man who controlled thousands of times as much wealth.
He and his wife, Helga, now live in a rented apartment in San Francisco.
"You can only wear one pair of pants at a time," Mr. Feeney has said.
Until he was 75, he traveled only in coach, and carried reading materials in a plastic bag.
For many years, when in New York, he had lunch not at the city's luxury restaurants,
but in the homey confines of Tommy Makem's Irish Pavilion on East 57th Street, where
he ate the burgers.
None of the major American philanthropists have given away a greater proportion of
their wealth, and starting in 1982, Mr. Feeney did most of this in complete secrecy,
leading Forbes magazine to call him the "James Bond of philanthropy."
His name does not appear in gilded letters, chiseled marble or other forms of writing
anywhere on the 1,000 buildings across five continents that $2.7 billion of his money
paid for. For years, Atlantic's support came with a requirement that the beneficiaries
not publicize its involvement.
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