The launch of a biography of Atlan-tic’s (a charitable foundation)founder, Charles F. Feeney. It’s unusual because Chuck Feeney has spent his whole life avoiding the spotlight, even going to the lengths of originally setting up his foundation anonymously, so none of the beneficiaries would know where the grant came from.
The Billionaire Who Wasn’t, written by the celebrated Irish journalist Conor O’ Clery tells the story of a man from a working class family in Elizabeth, New Jersey, who attended Cornell University on the G.I. Bill after four years in the Air Force in Japan. With a knack for making money that started with selling Christmas cards door-to-door as a ten-year old, Chuck Feeney and his partners founded Duty Free Shoppers, the largest duty-free retail chain in the world. By 1988 the Forbes 400 listed him as the 23rd richest American.
But he wasn’t. By the time he mistakenly appeared on the coveted list, Feeney had quietly transferred the bulk of his vast wealth to a charitable foundation – the origins of The Atlantic Philanthropies – and his net worth was only a few million dollars. Living modestly ever since in rented apartments, owning no car, flying economy, sporting a five-dollar watch, and toting his things around in a shopping bag, Chuck Feeney is not your average billionaire. Or former one, that is. Atlantic over the years has moved into the open, striving to be as transparent as any of our colleague institutions, but Chuck Feeney has remained behind the scenes, rarely giving interviews and never accepting honors or recognition.
So why did he permit Conor O’Clery to tell the story of his remarkable life? It’s because Chuck Feeney believes strongly in a philosophy he calls “giving while living.” O’ Clery quotes a rare note from Feeney to the Atlantic Trustees when the foundation’s future was being discussed: “I believe that people of substantial wealth potentially create problems for future generations unless they themselves accept responsibility to use their wealth during their lifetime to help worthwhile causes.”
Virtually all of the countries in which Atlantic works have deep social challenges and at the same time many leverage points for change. Those challenges that are addressed now, like opportunities for youth or access to treatment for those with HIV, are much less likely to become larger, more entrenched and more expensive challenges down the line.
The Billionaire Who Wasn’t is full of great stories that illuminate the man whose generosity made possible one of the world’s largest foundations. A commitment to philanthropy was bred in the young Chuck’s household. His father, Leo, was a member of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization that gave financial aid to members and their families in need. His mother, Madaline, was a nurse who did constant favors for neighbors without anyone knowing.
Chuck Feeney’s approach to philanthropy relies on common sense and intuition, particularly when it comes to leadership and performance. Take Viet-Nam, a country that Feeney believes has gotten a “bad deal”. Fifteen years ago, while waiting for a flight in San Francisco airport, he read a San Francisco Chronicle story about a small humanitarian organization, East Meets West, that was helping Viet-Nam’s poor to promote self-sufficiency by building schools and providing safe drinking water. Feeney arranged to meet the organization’s director, offered him a grant of $100,000 and said “see what you can do with that.” He visited Viet-Nam for the first of many times the next year, and tens of millions of dollars later, East Meets West is a key Atlantic partner in rebuilding the country’s health infrastructure.
In Limerick, Ireland, Feeney found a man with a plan in Ed Walsh, who was in Dublin petitioning for full university status for the Limerick Institute of Higher Education. “I could see very quickly they could absorb an awful lot of money,” Feeney told O’Clery. “ The university was on a magnificent site, but buildings were in rough condition. I recognized here was a school on the uptake and a charismatic leader. You need both things to support an organization.” And as with Viet-Nam, Feeney with Limerick and other higher education grants was attracted to potential waiting to be liberated by resources – votes of confidence that in turn attracted substantial support from government and other donors.
This entrepreneurial approach to philanthropy was modeled by the staff Feeney attracted to Atlantic. Ray Handlan, a former Cornell official who came on in 1982 as Atlantic’s first President, approached City Year founder Michael Brown after hearing him give a speech, and ended up assisting the fledgling organization to expand to 14 cities. City Year became the model for President Clinton’s AmeriCorps program. To this day, in whichever ways Atlantic has grown, It strives to continue that entrepreneurial tradition and honor the belief that philanthropy is best not when it steers the grantees’ ship, but helps put the wind in their sails.
O’Clery’s biography is “an epic tale that would make a great movie if its morale did not counteract so powerfully the grand narrative of our money-grubbing times… he does full justice to Feeney's own realization that wealth, even when you make it from flogging booze and smokes at airports, is not duty-free.”
曾听人说：——
“取是一种本事，舍则是一门学问。没有能力的人取不足；没有领悟的人舍不得。”
舍之前，总要取，才有所舍，取多之后，常得舍弃，才能再取。所以“取”、“舍”虽是反义，却是以物的两面，更能显出那各人平凡中的不平凡。
No comments:
Post a Comment