What would you do if you suddenly came into a lot of money? And why? And when I say a lot, I don’t mean a few hundred quid; I mean 20/30 million pounds and upwards. What would you do if suddenly you had that sort of money in your bank account?
In yesterday’s Times newspaper there was a story of a person who had exactly that circumstance. Marlene Engelhorn, 31 years old, from Austria, inherited 25 million euros (about £21.5 million) and decided overnight to give it all away; and not just to give it all away, but to give it all away in the most interesting of ways. Instead of deciding herself who to give it to, she put her whole inheritance at the disposal of a ‘Good Council for Redistribution’ consisting of 50 people aged 16 and above. According to The Times, “invitations [to be on this Council] were sent this week to 10,000 randomly selected addresses in Austria. The applicants will be asked to complete a short survey and will be whittled down to 50 by a research institute using statistical methods to arrive at a representative sample of the Austrian population.” Engelhorn has put a few small conditions on how the money is spent – for instance, it must not fund hostile or inhumane activity, nor go to profit making organisations – but after that, the Council can spend it however they like, and she, Engelhorn, will have no further say in how it is spent. So that’s one very unusual thing you could do if you suddenly ran into some money. Here are two more…
When I was growing up, one of the films of the day was a comedy called Brewster’s Millions – you may have seen it. A man called Brewster is told that a great-uncle whom he has never met has died and left him 300 million US dollars in his will. There are, however, conditions attached. He can either choose to receive $1 million; or alternatively he can take a challenge to win the $300 million. The challenge is to spend $30 million dollars in 30 days. The rules are that, at the end of the 30 days, he must not own any assets that he did not already own; that he receives full value for any services that he hires; that he is not allowed to give it away; and that, finally, he must keep the challenge a secret. If he fails the challenge, then he inherits nothing at all – not even the million dollars offered up front. What would you choose? One million for definite; or the chance at 300 million, with the possibility of receiving nothing? And if you choose the challenge, how would you do it? Well, obviously Brewster greedily chooses the challenge – and if you want to know what happens, then you will have to watch the film.
The most remarkable story of this type did not involve somebody’s will, but instead it involved somebody’s lifetime earnings. Chuck Feeney died last year, aged 92. He was, essentially, an entrepreneur who made his money by founding the Duty Free Shoppers Group in 1960, during the early days of duty free shopping. In time, it became the world’s largest travel retailer (I am sure you have seen the duty free shops in airports, for instance), and it earned him, over time, a fortune worth $8 billion. In 1982, aged 50, he created a foundation called Atlantic Philanthropy and started, in secret, to give all his money away. Nobody knew he was doing this until fourteen years later when, by chance, it became public knowledge. Chuck Feeney spent the rest of his life revolutionising philanthropy (for those of you who do not know, philanthropy means helping those in need, especially by donations of money). He continued to give away his money to all sorts of good causes, which were close to his own heart: his old university, to education in Ireland, to public health structures in Vietnam, to health initiatives in Africa, to earthquake relief in Haiti and so on. In September 2020, he finally shut down Atlantic Philanthropies, having achieved his lifetime goal of giving away all of his $8 billion fortune by the end of that year. He himself lived a relatively modest life in a perfectly normal house; reportedly he didn’t own a car (though I did read one report of him buying a second-hand Volvo); and famously he wore a $10 Casio watch – when asked why, he simply said, “Why do I need a Rolex when it tells the same time?” What a remarkable man he must have been!
In 2010, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet set up an organisation called ‘The Giving Pledge’. The goal of this organisation was to inspire the world’s richest people to give away at least half of their net worth to philanthropy, either during their lifetime or after their death. Within a year or two, 81 billionaires had apparently joined. When Chuck Feeney joined in 2011, he reportedly said this:
“I cannot think of a more personally rewarding and appropriate use of wealth than to give while one is living—to personally devote oneself to meaningful efforts to improve the human condition. More importantly, today’s needs are so great and varied that intelligent philanthropic support and positive interventions can have greater value and impact today than if they are delayed until the needs are greater.”
So, to end this talk by coming back to Marlene Engelhorn. Her passion in her young life was to try to solve wealth inequality; indeed, before she inherited her 25 million euros, she had co-founded a campaign called Taxmenow, aiming to force a tax system in Austria and Germany which would provide a fairer redistribution of wealth. Very impressively, she had the moral integrity to stand up for her beliefs when she inherited so much money, by giving it all away. Personally, I sometimes wonder whether taxation really is the only answer or whether we can maintain the incentive to earn well whilst also creating an environment where all wealthy people are encouraged to be more like Chuck Feeney. Maybe that is simply a utopia. Nevertheless, I do come back to the original questions – and please do give this some real thought after this assembly: what would you do if you ran into some serious money? And, perhaps more importantly, why?