Melinda Gates Welcomes The Philanthropists Of The Future

Two decades ago, when starting our journey in philanthropy, we were fortunate to have a very wise advisor: Warren Buffett. Melinda Gates Welcomes The Philanthropists Of The Future

Warren had been donating his money since the 1960s, and he helped us think critically about how to donate ours. We wanted to improve education in the United States and fight poverty and disease around the world, and Warren pushed us to be ambitious. In 2006, Warren donated the bulk of his fortune to our foundation, and he gave us a mandate. “Swing for the fences,” he said.

Carolyn Aranda, Philanthropist

Carolyn gives generously to: Feeding America, The Giving Fund, various GoFundMe campaigns, etc.

Neither of us were enormous baseball fans, but we understood what he meant. When you swing for the fences, you’re putting every ounce of strength into hitting the ball as far as possible. You know that your bat might miss the ball entirely—but that if you succeed in making contact, you’re going to hit a home run.

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Today, that’s how we think about our philanthropy, too. The goal isn’t just incremental progress. It’s to put the full force of our efforts and resources behind the big bets that, if successful, will save and improve lives.

This year, the fence we’re swinging for—and indeed, the entire world is swinging for—is a very obvious and very high fence. The world must end the Covid-19 pandemic and soften its ripple effects, including the adjacent economic crisis that has plunged 37 million people back into poverty. To address the challenge, countries must devote all the money and expertise they possibly can—and even then, it may not be enough.

This is a moment when new philanthropists can step in and help fill the gaps.

For those who are just starting out in philanthropy, we’ve written some general advice below. There aren’t any baseball metaphors, but we hope there is something in here that is useful to you—just as Warren’s wisdom has been to us.

Don’t expect to change the world overnight. Covid-19 isn’t just exploiting the pre-existing conditions in people’s bodies; it’s exploiting the pre-existing conditions in our societies, including racism, sexism, and poverty. We know that the virus is disproportionately killing Black Americans and that women are losing their jobs fastest in the recession.

These inequalities are the result of centuries of discrimination, and there’s no one grant that can erase that history. For philanthropists trying to solve society’s most entrenched problems, please know two things: It will take years of sustained generosity, but we think your work will be worth it.

“If you’re a philanthropist who always succeeds, you’re a philanthropist who is failing.” This is more good advice from Warren. His point was: It’s philanthropy’s job to do what other institutions, like businesses and governments, usually can’t: take risks. By definition, that means philanthropy’s success rate can be lower than other sectors. But those failures pave the way to breakthroughs.

Philanthropy can be a team sport. This is the closest we come to a baseball metaphor. Historically, philanthropists have put a limit on their impact by working alone. But that’s starting to change. Groups like the Audacious Project, Co-Impact, Blue Meridian Partners, Lever for Change, and the Climate Leadership Initiative are making it easy for donors to pool their money and share their expertise. They can absorb large grants—from $10 million to $100 million or more—and fund really smart solutions to big social problems like poverty, education, and climate change.

Start now. It’s important to do your research before you start to give, but it’s also important to learn by giving.

Modern philanthropy is a relatively new field. There’s no textbook. The sooner you become a philanthropist, the sooner you’ll become a good one.

Swing for the fences,

Bill & Melinda Gates

The Next Generation of Philanthropists

Rising Philanthropists, Focused On Results

Increasingly, wealthy individuals are taking a strategic approach to philanthropy, aiming to achieve specific outcomes rather than simply writing a check.

It’s a results-oriented approach that Bill and Melinda Gates have embraced with global outcomes for poverty, health care, and education. As the Gates say in their letter to rising philanthropists (opposite page), their goal isn’t “incremental progress,” but “to put the full force of our efforts and resources behind the big bets that, if successful, will save and improve lives.”

A new generation of philanthropists is embracing this same approach, and “thinking beyond their local communities,” says Judy Spalthoff, head of family advisory and philanthropy services at UBS. “They are absolutely less interested in traditional giving.”

On the following pages, we profile the new guard of philanthropists, including siblings Justin and Valerie Rockefeller, descendants of Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller Sr., who are active impact investors and philanthropists; Josh Lauder, who is following in his grandfather Leonard’s footsteps at the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation; Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry and his wife, Ayesha, who seek to improve the lives of children in Oakland, Calif.; and Adrian Cheng, heir to Cheng Yu-tung, founder of Hong Kong’s New World Development and Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, who is pioneering cross-cultural projects in the arts.

This rising generation of philanthropists is “open to new ideas and trying new things,” Spalthoff says, adding that they tell her, “if it doesn’t work, then we don’t waste time on it…It is a whole new world.”

—Abby Schultz

Valerie And Justin Rockefeller: Tapping Philanthropy And Capitalism To Create Change

The Children Of Former West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller On Aligning Work, Investing, And Philanthropy With Their Values

Valerie Rockefeller Serves As Chair Of The Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) And Is On The Board Of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

An “overarching theme” for descendants of John D. Rockefeller Sr. is that “it’s your responsibility to do philanthropy,” says Valerie Rockefeller, a member of the family’s fifth generation.

For Valerie, 49, and her brother Justin, 41, that’s meant philanthropy is entwined with how they approach just about everything.

Growing up as two of the four children of John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV, a former Democratic governor of West Virginia and a five-term U.S. senator, “we didn’t see these artificial distinctions between ‘this is philanthropy and this is your job,’” Valerie says, noting that her parents continue to be involved in public service. Sharon Percy Rockefeller, their mother, has been CEO of WETA-TV, a public radio station in Washington, D.C., since 1989.

Justin has applied this philanthropic lens most clearly to capitalism, noting his work as an impact investor sits at the intersection of these disciplines, and is “very much rooted in the work of some of our ancestors, who frankly had pretty outsized accomplishments in both.”

Today, Valerie, who was a middle school special education teacher, serves as chair of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) and is on the board of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. She also serves on the boards of Teachers College, Columbia University (which she attended), the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and a couple of charter school networks. “I spend half my time in education, although no longer in the classroom,” she says.

Justin serves on RBF’s investment committee and on its board. He also chairs the board of The ImPact, a 4-year-old membership organization of families “who are committed to aligning values and investments,” Justin says.

In sync with the Giving Pledge—which was created by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett to encourage the ultrarich to give most of their wealth to charity—The ImPact encourages members to use their investible assets “to create positive social and environmental change before they pass away,” he says. The advantage of a group, he adds, is that “collectively, we can effect more change.”

Professionally, Justin is global director of family offices and foundations at Addepar, a wealth management tech platform, that offers tools and resources for impact investors among its services.

“Collectively, We Can Effect More Change,” Justin Rockefeller Says

These three aspects of Justin’s life come together, as the RBF endowment (which has divested itself of fossil fuels, and is aligning more of its investments with its mission) tracks its holdings on The ImPact’s data platform, which is powered by Addepar.

“What’s endlessly fascinating about change-making is trying to pay attention to what are the most important, intractable, and neglected problems that are out there and then thinking about what levers to pull across philanthropy, capitalism, and politics to address those challenges,” Justin says.

The Rockefeller siblings have drawn inspiration from their immediate family and their ancestors, but they have also benefited from communicating and collaborating with members of their extended family, which numbers about 300 in all, “even if we don’t agree on every detail,” Justin says.

As an example of where they do agree, and collaborate, Valerie and her cousins Daniel Growald and Peter Gill Case, both fifth-generation Rockefellers as well, are co-chairing BankFWD, an organization recently formed to push for responsible climate finance.

While philanthropy itself is ingrained, a motivating factor for Valerie in fossil fuel divestment at RBF—and in investing personally in companies like Solar Holler, in Shepherdstown, W.Va.—is a “certain moral heaviness or guilt around how the money was made,” referring to her great-great-grandfather’s role in creating the oil business.

“There are moral consequences to the ways people earn money, spend money, donate money, and invest money,” Justin says. “The more proactively we can think about how those consequences align with our values, the more likely we are to act in a way that reflects our values, and makes it more likely for people now and in the future to flourish.”

—Abby Schultz

Stephen And Ayesha Curry: Changing Children’s Lives In The Bay Area And Beyond

In 2019, The Star Couple Launched Eat. Learn. Play. With A Focus On Nutrition, Education, And Physical Activity

Stephen And Ayesha Curry’s Eat. Learn. Play. And Its Partners Have Served More Than 11.3 Million Meals In Oakland, Calif., To Date.

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, food insecurity was an evolving crisis in Oakland, Calif. The Alameda County Community Food Bank served one of five citizens in the area, and one-third of those were children and seniors. As the coronavirus took its toll, with more parents out of work and children at home—18,000 kids in Oakland relied on school meals for two to three meals daily, according to the Oakland Unified School District—a monumental challenge was unfolding in the Bay Area.

Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry, 32, and his wife, the actress, television personality, and cookbook author Ayesha Curry, 31, stepped in to help. The couple had an existing relationship with the food bank through their organization Eat. Learn. Play., which was founded in July 2019 to focus on what Ayesha describes as “three vital pillars of a healthy childhood—nutrition, education, and physical activity.” The Currys mobilized their foundation to help provide daily meals for 24,000 students and their families during the pandemic. Eat. Learn. Play. and its partners have served more than 11.3 million meals in Oakland to date.

Although their organization is relatively new, the Currys, who have three children, ages 2 through 8, have been giving back in the Bay Area since the couple began calling it home over a decade ago, after Stephen was picked seventh in the 2009 NBA draft by the Warriors, which played in Oakland at the time. (The team moved into a new stadium in San Francisco in 2019.)

Stephen has since become a transcendent superstar—a lightning quick point guard with an automatic three-point shot—winning three NBA championships and two league MVP awards. Meanwhile, the Canadian-born Ayesha has appeared in films and television, hosted a cooking show on the Food Network, and authored a cookbook. That kind of success has given the

Currys the opportunity to make a real difference in their Bay Area community.

“We were both raised under the idea that giving back and taking care of the community is vitally important, and now with the resources and platform we are both so blessed to have, we can do that in a big way,” Stephen says. “Starting a foundation wasn’t something we decided to do overnight. Ayesha and I had both been involved in many important causes for the last 10-plus years, and in that time learned so much from so many people. But we had always been excited by the idea of doing something together, and the exponential impact that could create.”

The Currys decided to focus their philanthropy on children, with the aim of giving local kids a chance at a better life. “As we are parents ourselves, we see the unique opportunities our kids have access to,” Ayesha says. “Our hope is that Eat. Learn. Play., and the critical fundamental development tools it provides, will positively impact children in our community to live out their dreams.”

The foundation has adopted a multipronged approach to benefiting local children. It directly feeds kids, and also educates families on the importance of nutrition. It supports programs that help students stay on a path to earn a college degree. And it works to give kids, primarily from low-income communities, safe spaces to participate in youth sports, summer camps, and other physical activities. Eat. Learn. Play. has partnered both with national organizations, including No Kid Hungry and DonorsChoose, and local groups, such as the East Oakland Youth Development Center.

Even as they continue to fight hunger during the pandemic, the Currys are planning to expand the organization’s two other pillars—learn and play—as more children are being home-schooled.

Currently, many Oakland families lack the technology to do that well, providing an opening for Eat. Learn. Play.

“We’ve seen there’s an enormous education achievement gap in students from low-income communities and their middle-and-upper-class peers that has lifelong, negative ramifications for children growing up in poverty,” Ayesha says. “For many of these kids, they fall behind in key reading and math indicators before they even enter kindergarten, and by the fourth grade, a vast majority of kids from low-income communities, particularly minority students, are performing below the state and national averages for reading and math.”

The long-term aim is to amplify what Eat. Learn. Play. does in the Bay Area nationwide, “so that we can ensure our next generation has the access to everything they need,” Stephen says. “Beyond traditional grant-making, I think it’s likely we’ll become increasingly involved in advocacy activities around the issues we care about, whether that’s at the local, state, or federal level—always in a kid-partisan way, of course…Children are our future, and we are deeply dedicated to empowering them and opening doors for their futures.”

—Mitch Moxley

Josh Lauder: Building On A Family Legacy

The Great-Grandson Of The Estée Lauder Cos. Founders Is Inspired By Philanthropists With Long-Term Visions And Self-Sustaining Organizations

A Year Ago, Josh Lauder Launched The Young Professionals Committee Of The Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation.

Josh Lauder isn’t wasting time to follow in his family’s footsteps and make philanthropy integral to his life.

A year ago, Lauder, 25, co-founded the Young Professionals Committee of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF), the nonprofit created by his grandfather, Leonard, and his great-uncle, Ronald, billionaire heirs of the Estée Lauder Cos.

It’s Laura, Lauder’s mother, who he calls a “prolific philanthropist” and an inspiration to give back. Philanthropy “was a joy for her and she passed it on to be a joy for us,” Lauder says.

One of several initiatives his mother participated in was the creation of the Jewish Teen Foundation Board in Palo Alto, Calif., in 2002, a program she eventually helped spread across the U.S. and overseas. For Lauder, who joined the teen board in high school and eventually became one of the group’s leaders, being part of this organization taught him the value of consensus building, and the weight of responsibility in giving away other people’s money.

The popularity of the teen foundation board at a time of life when people are apt to be more absorbed in just about anything other than philanthropy informs how Lauder approaches recruiting for ADDF today. Lauder himself was drawn to the foundation to support the legacy of his family, but also because of “how much it takes from your soul to go through a neurodegenerative illness.”

Also, as the founding members watch the 20-year mark go by, Lauder sees a purpose in helping to bring a younger generation into the organization. “Everyone is in agreement that we need more people involved, and we need younger people involved, and we need more liveliness at the events,” he says.

Lauder’s family reinforces the values of consensus through the Lauder Family Giving Circle, a family grant-giving vehicle. Each year, Josh and his sister Eliana alternate taking the lead to research nonprofits that fit within a mission agreed to by the family. Their initial selections are vetted by a philanthropic advisor, and then are reviewed by the family around Thanksgiving before they decide which groups will receive grants totaling about $50,000 to $100,000 annually, Lauder says.

Lauder says he’s inspired by those who have created well-endowed, self- sustaining organizations designed to continue to have an impact beyond their founder’s lifetimes, citing the work of Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett, and Stephen Schwarzman, among others.

Doing so would be in keeping with the Hebrew phrase l’dor v’dor, from generation to generation, passing on the values of philanthropy instilled by his mother, including tikkun olam—to repair the world, in Hebrew—and “the idea that people shouldn’t just engage in philanthropy for the sake of their own status signaling,” Lauder says.

“The most righteous way to give is to invest your time humbly and to invest your money humbly,” he adds. And, “to take a leadership role in a humble way that can be of service and be inspirational to others.”

—Abby Schultz

Adrian Cheng: Inspiring And Empowering The Next Generation

The CEO Of Hong Kong-Based New World Development Dedicates Himself To Youth Development, Art, And Cultural Preservation

Adrian Cheng Oversees New World Springboard, A Nonprofit That Includes An Array Of Community And Mentorship Programs.

The New World Basketball League is one of an array of community and mentorship programs offered at New World Springboard, a nonprofit organization overseen by Adrian Cheng, CEO of property developer New World Development and executive director of jewelry company Chow Tai Fook.

Cheng, 41, founded New World Springboard in 2012, with a mission to empower under-resourced youth in different aspects of life, including health and wellness, arts and culture, and learning opportunities that advance personal growth. Its core programs are basketball and swimming for students from age 8 to 12.

Cheng’s philanthropic ideals, as well as his human-centric approach to business, were inspired by his grandfather Cheng Yu-tung, and his father, Henry Cheng Kar-shun, two of the most prominent business leaders in Hong Kong.

As the heir to his grandfather, who died in 2016 at age 91, Cheng joined the family business in 2006, after studying at Harvard University and a stint as an investment banker.

“I come from a family that believes in creating shared value,” Cheng says. “We have clear visions for taking social responsibilities, sharing resources, transferring knowledge, and empowering the new generation.”

Youth development has since been a focal point in Cheng’s philanthropic pursuits. He currently serves as the chairman of China Young Leaders Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes cultural exchange among college students. He also supports programs at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), to which he recently donated 500,000 medical-grade masks to help vulnerable children fighting against the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the face of the global health crisis, Cheng donated funds and medical equipment to China, and launched #LoveWithoutBorders, a charitable initiative that has donated 2.5 million medical face masks globally.

An avid art collector, Cheng launched the K11 Art Foundation in 2010, which promotes Chinese contemporary art in collaboration with institutions around the world. Last year, he transformed a historic site in Hong Kong, Holt’s Wharf, into a global art and design district. His latest project is to preserve the State Theater, a derelict 68-year-old historic site.

For Cheng, philanthropy is about quickly accommodating the needs of local and global communities, and having a long-term vision for the welfare of those communities, he says.

“There is a paradigm shift in philanthropy,” he says. “Younger generations like to get their hands dirty and have a more measurable impact.”

Updated: 8-25-2021

Billionaire Donations Soar In China Push For ‘Common Prosperity’

Seven Chinese billionaires have directed a record $5 billion to charity so far this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News, a sum that exceeds by 20% total national giving in 2020. Their pledges, whether through corporate interests, foundations or personal wealth, arrive as President Xi Jinping pushes for “common prosperity,” a sprawling campaign to close the country’s wealth gap.

Xi has emphasized wealth redistribution within China, referring to “common prosperity” goals at least 65 times in speeches and meetings this year, more than double the 30 mentions in all of last year.

It’s not clear what all the policy implications of the campaign will include, but China has identified a “third distribution of wealth” — individual giving and corporate philanthropy — alongside government and market interventions.

In a high-level meeting chaired by Xi on Aug. 17, the government said it “should reasonably adjust excessive incomes and encourage high-income people and companies to give back more to society.” This idea of a “social hand,” according to state media, will rely on moral obligation and social expectation to inspire the country’s richest to divest some of their personal wealth.

The sum of the biggest pledges so far this year already exceeds the nearly 27 billion yuan ($4.2 billion) donated by individuals and Chinese companies in all of 2020, according to the China Charity Ranking, which asks individuals, firms and foundations to report their giving.

The full total is higher: high-profile companies and wealthy celebrities, strongly encouraged by state media and online partisans, contributed to more than $600 million in donations for flood relief efforts in Henan Province.

Tech giants have also pledged current and future corporate profits to invest in philanthropy projects, including $15 billion set aside by Tencent Holdings Ltd. for its social responsibility programs and Pinduoduo Inc.’s 10 billion yuan investment for agriculture development.

Updated: 12-23-2021

Kimbal Musk Wants To Disrupt Philanthropy With The Big Green DAO

The decentralized autonomous organization is designed to get money into the hands of local groups that best know how to use it.

When Kimbal Musk began telling the online cryptocurrency community in September that he was thinking of starting a crypto venture, he says, it urged him: “You gotta do a coin!”

Musk, who sits on the boards of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, told them he wasn’t going to create a digital currency. But the crypto enthusiasts couldn’t understand. Their response would always be: “But you’re still doing a coin, right?”

He’s not. But at the end of November, Elon Musk’s younger brother inaugurated the Big Green DAO, or “decentralized autonomous organization.”

An offshoot of Big Green, the Colorado-based school-gardening nonprofit he founded in 2011, the DAO is a sort of digital foundation that plans to take money from donors and dispense it according to a strict set of rules encoded in blockchain technology.

If it works the group could provide an easier, faster way for small nonprofits to get funding from big donors that are otherwise out of reach. The DAO, which was launched with $1 million in funds from Musk, will be required to distribute an ambitious percentage every quarter, starting with at least 20% in the first quarter of 2022.

Put simply, a DAO is a community bound together by rules written into the blockchain, so financial transactions and other interactions don’t need to be monitored by a government or third party.

All votes and key transactions involving group members are publicly tracked and verifiable. DAOs recently got attention when a group called ConstitutionDAO tried and failed to buy a copy of the U.S. Constitution.

(It was outbid by billionaire Ken Griffin.)

“Money will be trackable, votes will be transparent, in a way that doesn’t happen with the traditional philanthropic system”

The Big Green DAO’s main innovation is that it allows both donors and grant recipients to cast votes to decide who gets the group’s money and how much of it.

Each donor receives a governance token, and when funds are given to a new nonprofit, that recipient gets one as well. Each of the tokens, which are run on the Ethereum blockchain, has a voting power of one.

In theory, then, the more funds the DAO distributes, the more votes will be cast in subsequent rounds of funding.

And since local nonprofit organizations often have the most knowledge about which other nonprofits operate best in a given space, Musk hopes the DAO’s money will increasingly find its way to the appropriate local groups—perhaps ones otherwise overlooked by deskbound bureaucrats at big philanthropies.

“Money will be trackable, votes will be transparent, in a way that doesn’t happen with the traditional philanthropic system,” says Mat Markman, who helped design the Big Green DAO’s structure alongside Musk. And even if you give more money, you still only get one token.

“The plus that I see here is that the organizations that are actually doing the work have a voice in making decisions about where the funds go,” says Melissa Berman, president and chief executive officer of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. As an example, Musk points to Big Green, which he started in order to provide learning gardens for underserved schools. “We’re in Boulder, Colo., and we know all the nonprofits here.”

The problems in philanthropy that Musk’s DAO is trying to address are well known. Foundations and charities are often bureaucratic and top-heavy, failing to understand the communities to which they give.

After an earthquake crippled Haiti in 2010, for example, the American Red Cross was inundated with almost $500 million in funding.

But officials struggled to find the right groups to support, and a study by NPR and ProPublica showed a large portion of that was eaten by management fees while leaving little evidence of long-term impact.

Musk is hardly the first to try to find another way. Billionaire MacKenzie Scott, one of the world’s richest people, has been emailing multimillion-dollar surprise checks to nonprofits.

Yet while her stealth-mode philanthropy has earned her praise from some, it’s also deprived grantees of a way to get her attention through a traditional application process.

A DAO could address this issue while also making the grant-giving process itself easier and faster. Big foundations often don’t have the time to write lots of small grants that are appropriate for more modest or local groups, so it’s tempting to write big grants only to organizations with the infrastructure to handle them.

Musk argues this may exclude the most effective grassroots ones. But if the review work is performed by a network of nonprofits, the individual burden is lifted. (Grant seekers, hopefully nudged by token holders, still need to submit an online application to the Big Green DAO.)

“One of the key issues in philanthropy is equity and justice,” says Berman. “And that applies not just to the results that we want to see but to the ways decisions are being made.”

Updated: 12-25-2021

One Country Topped Gofundme’s 2021 List Of Most Generous Nations For The Third Year In A Row — And It’s Not The U.S.

The most generous user on the fundraising platform made 434 donations in 2021, according to GoFundMe’s 2021 giving report.

It’s been another year marked by tumult for many around the world, and one country has emerged as a generous supporter of people in need.

Ireland topped the list of most generous countries, according to the 2021 giving report from the for-profit fundraising platform GoFundMe.

Donors in Ireland donated the most money per capita on GoFundMe, where individuals can quickly set up fundraising appeals for everything from college tuition to help recovering from disasters. All they need is a photo, a “shareable” story and a verifiable bank account, according to the GoFundMe website.

This year marks the third year in a row that Ireland was the most generous country on GoFundMe’s list. The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia were the other most generous countries on a per capita basis.

The most generous person on GoFundMe made 434 donations in 2021, according to the report. GoFundMe didn’t specify which country that person lives in or how much total money they donated. The fastest growing fundraising categories in 2021 were “newlyweds and animals,” GoFundMe said.

‘We turned hard-to-watch headlines into meaningful help when it mattered most.’
— GoFundMe’s annual report

“We turned hard-to-watch headlines into meaningful help when it mattered most,” GoFundMe said in the report. Standout moments of the past year included March 28, 2021, when a fundraiser for medical treatment for a U.K. baby with leukemia took in more than 100,000 donations, raising more than 1 million British pounds in 24 hours. The child died in April.

Medical bills are a common reason people turn to GoFundMe. More than a quarter (26.7%) of the fundraisers created on the platform between its launch in 2010 and 2018 were for healthcare-related expenses, according to a study published in 2021 on JAMA Open Network.

Users of the platform also rallied in 2021 to address the surge in violence and hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, raising more than $7 million through a variety of fundraisers launched around the globe, the GoFundMe giving report said.

It’s free to start a fundraising page on GoFundMe, but the company takes a cut of the funds that are raised. For fundraisers on behalf of individuals or businesses in the U.S., GoFundMe charges a transaction fee of 2.9%, plus 30 cents per donation. Beneficiaries receive the total amount donated, minus those fees.

The platform offers a guarantee for donors, and if the funds they donate are misused by recipients, they can apply for a refund.

There’s Also A Separate GoFundMe Charity

The platform also hosts larger fundraisers associated with celebrities that raise money for other charities.

Donations to those fundraisers go to GoFundMe.org, a separate nonprofit that works with the for-profit GoFundMe fundraising platform.

GoFundMe.org then distributes those donations to other charities. One such fundraiser in 2020 was linked to actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Apple  co-founder Steve Jobs. The campaign, which is still active, has raised more than $45 million for anti-hunger groups including Feeding America, a network of food banks.

The GoFundMe.org charity said it had a 96% efficiency rate during its first year of operations in 2017, according to the charity’s frequently asked questions page.

“This means that $0.96 of every dollar you donated went directly to your cause,” it says. “The remaining 4% reflects a combination of (a) a standard transaction fee that allows for credit card processing and the safe transfer of funds over platforms; (b) bank fees; and (c) postage and other expenses incurred in the normal course of business.”

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