Have you ever heard of Charles F. Feeney? I didn’t think so and neither had I until about a month ago — and that’s what’s amazing. I first learned his name in early January reading a Jim Dwyer column in the New York Times entitled “James Bond of Philanthropy Gives Away the Last of His Fortune.”
My eyes grew wide as I read for the first time about an 85-year-old man who over the course of the last 35 years has given away virtually his entire fortune of eight billion dollars and in such complete anonymity that Forbes dubbed him the “James Bond of Philanthropy.” Five years ago Atlantic Philanthropies a group of foundations he used to disburse his contributions still had about $1.5 billion left and Feeney pledged to give it all away by the end of 2016 since as he put it “while giving when dead you don’t feel anything.” He kept that promise making a final grant of $7 million to Cornell University in late December.
We’re talking about a person who only flew in coach class until he was 75 still buys clothes off the rack and eats at burger joints. I’m sure readers are wondering about his children: He apparently has made “decent though not extravagant provisions for his four daughters and one son… all [of whom] worked through college as waiters maids and cashiers.”
If there’s anyone involved in this saga that I’d want to interview I think it would be those kids to learn how they feel about their dad’s provisions for them and more generally about how they were raised. The story attributes to Feeney the quote that “You can only wear one pair of pants at a time ” and I’d be very interested in hearing from his kids whether they feel the same way and what their father did to inculcate that way of looking at life within them.
