Social Entrepreneurship - Resources to Find Out More

Social Entrepreneurship - Resources to Find Out More:


Kailash Satyarthi
South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS)
Works to end forced child labor in South Asia.

Moses Zulu
Development Aid from People to People in Zambia (Children's Town)
Educates and integrates AIDS orphans in Africa.

Mimi Silbert
Delancey Street Foundation
Criminal rehabilitation center in which residents run various business enterprises.

David Green and Dr. V:
Aurolab
Hospital and manufacturer of medical devices serving poor people, mainly in India.

Nick Moon and Martin Fisher
Appropriate Technology for Enterprise Creation (ApproTEC)
Manufactures and markets simple agricultural tools that aid in business development in Africa.

Fabio Rosa
Agroelectric System of Appropriate Technology (STA) and The Institute for Development of Natural Energy and Sustainability (IDEAAS)
Distributes alternative energy sources in rural Brazil.

Muhammad Yunus
Grameen Bank
Grants small loans without requiring collateral.

Maria Teresa Leal
Coopa Roca
Brazilian sewing cooperative.

Albina Ruiz
Ciudad Saludable
Alternative waste management organization in Peru.

Dina Abdel Wahab
Baby Academy
Alternative preschool chain in Middle East.

Inderjit Khurana
Ruchika School Social Service Wing, Train Platform Schools
Educational opportunity for indigent children in India.

Sompop Jantraka
Development and Education Program for Daughters Community Center (DEPDC)
Education and socialization program for girls and women in Thailand who would otherwise be forced into prostitution.

Organizations that specialize in providing direct support to social entrepreneurs

Skoll Foundation
Advances systemic change to benefit communities around the world by investing in, connecting and celebrating social entrepreneurs. The foundation extends its mission through Social Edge, an online resource for the social entrepreneur community.

Editor's Note: PBS's editorial standards typically prohibit the inclusion of a funder on a resources page. However, we are making a special exception in this case since the funder, in our editorial judgment, is a related resource of potential educational interest to visitors.

Global Giving
Enables individuals and companies to find and support social and economic development projects around the world.

Ashoka
Develops the profession of social entrepreneurship around the world by investing in people.

The Schwab Foundation
Supports social entrepreneurship as a key element to advance societies and address social problems.

Echoing Green
Sparks social change by identifying, providing startup grants, supporting, and connecting social entrepreneurs and their organizations.

Acumen Fund
Supports entrepreneurial approaches to solving global poverty by providing a blueprint for building financially sustainable and scalable organizations that deliver affordable, critical goods and services to the poor.

Draper Richards Foundation
Helps people create wide-reaching social change by providing funding and business mentoring to individuals and their non-profit organizations.

Kauffman Foundation
Improves economic welfare and academic achievement of children in low-income families by promoting entrepreneurship-friendly policies and research in technology and education.

Organizations that offer research tools for finding and supporting innovative social organizations

Charity Navigator
Evaluates financial health of America's largest charities in order to advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace.

GivingGlobal
Connects volunteers and donors with international Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs).

General Resources for Research on Social Change Organizations

OneWorld.net
Online media gateway designed to inform about human rights and sustainable development worldwide.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy — online newspaper
Print and online newspaper covering the world of nonprofits.

Changemakers.net
Inspires change by providing resources in an online community that competes to find the best solutions to social problems, then collaborates to refine, enrich and implement them.

Idealist.org
Helps members and supporters find practical solutions to social and environmental problems by connecting people, organizations and resources.

Research Organizations based in Universities

Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University
Promotes the advancement of social entrepreneurship worldwide.

Social Enterprise Initiative at Harvard Business School
Educates leaders by integrating social enterprise-related research, teaching and activities.

Center for Social Innovation (CSI) at Stanford Graduate School of Business
Promotes solutions through interdisciplinary research, teaching beyond the classroom and efforts to engage with those who lead social change.

Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business
Explores adapting business concepts, tools and skills to the social sector in appropriate, practical and effective ways, increasing awareness on a local, national and international level.

Columbia Business School: Social Enterprise Program
Empowers students to achieve social benefit through business practices.


http://www.pbs.org/opb/thenewheroes/whatis/resources.html

Social entrepreneurs identify resources where people see problems

"Social entrepreneurs identify resources where people only see problems. They view the villagers as the solution, not the passive beneficiary. They begin with the assumption of competence and unleash resources in the communities they're serving."

David Bornstein, author of How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas



Examples of social entrepreneurs in our recent history:

http://www.pbs.org/opb/thenewheroes/whatis/whatis_ss_2.html

The new Heroes

What is Social Entrepreneurship?
"Social entrepreneurs identify resources where people only see problems. They view the villagers as the solution, not the passive beneficiary. They begin with the assumption of competence and unleash resources in the communities they're serving."

David Bornstein, author of How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas

"Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry."

Bill Drayton, CEO, chair and founder of Ashoka

A social entrepreneur identifies and solves social problems on a large scale. Just as business entrepreneurs create and transform whole industries, social entrepreneurs act as the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss in order to improve systems, invent and disseminate new approaches and advance sustainable solutions that create social value.

Unlike traditional business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs primarily seek to generate "social value" rather than profits. And unlike the majority of non-profit organizations, their work is targeted not only towards immediate, small-scale effects, but sweeping, long-term change.

The job of a social entrepreneur is to recognize when a part of society is stuck and to provide new ways to get it unstuck. He or she finds what is not working and solves the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution and persuading entire societies to take new leaps.

Identifying and solving large-scale social problems requires a committed person with a vision and determination to persist in the face of daunting odds. Ultimately, social entrepreneurs are driven to produce measurable impact by opening up new pathways for the marginalized and disadvantaged, and unlocking society's full potential to effect social change.

The past two decades have seen an explosion of entrepreneurship and a healthy competition in the social sector, which has discovered what the business sector learned from the railroad, the stock market and the digital revolution: Nothing is as powerful as a big new idea if it is in the hands of a first class entrepreneur.

This revolution is fundamentally changing the way society organizes itself and the way we approach social problems.

The stories featured in The New Heroes showcase the work of social entrepreneurs whose innovations are bringing electricity, water, medicine and other life-changing tools and resources to people in the developing world. Each story illustrates the results possible when an innovative idea is coupled with a strategy for action and an entrepreneur's indomitable will.

http://www.pbs.org/opb/thenewheroes/whatis/

A great radio program on the radio

http://www.thenewheroes.org/audio/HereOnEarth.mp3

A wonderful initiative to illustrate the power of social entrepreneurship ...and how everything starts one normal day that could now for you !

Une nouvelle race de philanthropes

Le monde, par Sylvie Kauffmann

A l'heure des patrons cupides et sans vergogne abondamment décriés des deux côtés de l'Atlantique, deux nouvelles venues des Etats-Unis éclairent d'un jour plus plaisant une autre facette du capitalisme. En l'espace de deux semaines, les deux hommes les plus riches du monde, tous deux Américains, ont annoncé qu'ils allaient consacrer l'un son temps, l'autre sa fortune à la cause de la réduction de la pauvreté sur la planète.
A 50 ans, Bill Gates, fondateur de Microsoft, qui a déjà donné, depuis 1999, un peu plus de 30 milliards de dollars à la fondation caritative qu'il a créée avec sa femme Melinda, a fait part, le 15 juin, de son intention de se retirer, d'ici deux ans, de la gestion de son entreprise pour pouvoir s'occuper à plein temps de la fondation.

Le 25 juin, Warren Buffett, 75 ans, le financier d'Omaha (Nebraska) qui transforme en or le moindre investissement, a annoncé à son tour qu'il donnait 85 % de sa fortune, soit 31 milliards de dollars, à la Fondation Bill et Melinda Gates. Dans la grande tradition américaine de la méritocratie, M. Buffett ne souhaite pas léguer ses colossales richesses à ses trois enfants, en dehors de leurs propres fondations caritatives, auxquelles il donnera 6 milliards de dollars : il n'a guère "d'enthousiasme, a-t-il expliqué au magazine Fortune, pour les fortunes dynastiques, surtout lorsque l'alternative est d'en faire profiter six milliards d'individus". Une philosophie à l'opposé de celle des grandes familles françaises.

Au-delà de chiffres qui battent tous les records de l'histoire de la philanthropie, les initiatives de Bill Gates et de Warren Buffett, deux self-made-men, sont révélatrices de l'évolution à la fois du capitalisme et de l'économie du don. Aux Etats-Unis, l'histoire de la philanthropie a été marquée par de grands noms comme Rockefeller, Carnegie ou Morgan, capitaines d'industrie et banquiers qui, dès la fin du XIXe siècle, ont, par leurs dons, largement contribué au développement de l'éducation, des arts et de la recherche.

Plus politique, le financier George Soros, dans les années 1980 et 1990, a choisi, lui, d'oeuvrer pour préparer l'avènement de la démocratie dans les pays communistes par l'intermédiaire de son Open Society Institute, qui continue de nourrir de multiples projets, quinze ans après l'effondrement de l'URSS. M. Soros finance aussi, aux Etats-Unis, des programmes sur la drogue et les prisons.

Le boom d'Internet, dans les années 1990, et l'éclosion de fortunes amassées en quelques mois de la Silicon Valley à Wall Street ont relancé la tradition philanthropique américaine, encouragée par une fiscalité incitative : nombre de ces millionnaires de 25 ans ont été rapidement convaincus par leurs aînés de suivre l'exemple de William Hewlett et de David Packard et de céder une partie de leurs bénéfices astronomiques à des causes sociales. On a d'ailleurs beaucoup reproché à Bill Gates lui-même, à cette époque, de traîner les pieds pour suivre le mouvement. Il s'est largement rattrapé depuis, notamment sous l'influence de sa femme, et finance aujourd'hui d'énormes projets éducatifs et de santé à travers le monde.

Le secteur de la finance n'est pas en reste : outre Warren Buffett, Sandy Weill, le légendaire patron de Citigroup, vient également d'annoncer qu'il ferait don de sa fortune - modeste, au regard de celle de M. Buffett : 1,4 milliard de dollars - avant sa mort. "Les linceuls n'ont pas de poches", a expliqué sa femme.

Ces généreux capitalistes ont, du XIXe au XXIe siècle, autre chose en commun : philanthrope ne veut pas dire naïf, et, en affaires, ces hommes-là sont impitoyables. Ce n'est pas par hasard que les Rockefeller et autres Carnegie sont passés à la postérité sous le nom de robber barons ("barons voleurs"). George Soros est généralement gratifié de l'épithète de "spéculateur" avant qu'on ne lui accole celle de philanthrope. Le jour même où il recevait le don de son ami Warren Buffett, Bill Gates attendait le verdict de la Commission de Bruxelles, qui menace Microsoft de lourdes amendes pour violation de la réglementation antitrust. Bill et Melinda Gates travaillent étroitement aujourd'hui, sous leur casquette de philanthropes, avec un dénommé Joel Klein, patron du système scolaire public de New York, que la Fondation Gates tente d'améliorer. Dans une autre vie, Joel Klein fut le procureur fédéral qui s'acharna contre Microsoft pour abus de position dominante sur le marché américain.

LA FONDATION GATES

Warren Buffett, lui, apporte une autre innovation à la philanthropie. A la surprise générale, le "sage d'Omaha" ne crée pas de fondation à son nom pour glorifier son image, n'impose pas de projets personnalisés pour perpétuer son oeuvre.

Fidèle au mode de fonctionnement qui lui a si bien réussi, Warren Buffett vise l'efficacité et choisit donc de donner sa fortune à une structure qu'il sait gérée au plus près : la Fondation Gates. "J'ai quelque espoir, a-t-il confié à Fortune, que mon geste encourage d'autres gens très riches songeant à la philanthropie à décider qu'ils ne sont pas obligés de créer leur propre fondation et à chercher autour d'eux ce qui marche bien, où leur argent puisse être bien utilisé." C'est l'ère de la philanthropie désintéressée, une "philanthropie révolutionnaire", dit le Wall Street Journal.

La tendance était déjà visible chez les jeunes capitalistes de la high-tech, qui préféraient allouer leurs dons à des projets précis, avec obligation de résultats, plutôt que de les verser aveuglément à des structures publiques où ils risquaient de se perdre en dépenses bureaucratiques. La Fondation Gates, qui n'emploie que 241 salariés, tente de contourner le danger bureaucratique en restant la plus légère possible. En 2005, la Fondation Rockefeller a dispensé 110,5 millions de dollars de dons et dépensé 30,5 millions en coûts de fonctionnement, soit 27 %. La Fondation Gates, elle, a alloué 1,3 milliard de dollars de dons et consacré 42 millions seulement aux dépenses administratives. C'est ce qui a séduit Warren Buffett.

Ce mode de gestion de la philanthropie est-il durable ? C'est évidemment ce qui fait la différence avec l'aide publique, qui, si elle reste d'un volume globalement supérieur (le budget de la Banque mondiale dépasse, par exemple, 200 milliards de dollars), voit souvent son efficacité contestée. Au moment où les Américains sont de plus en plus enclins à donner - 260 milliards de dollars en 2005, soit 6 % de plus que l'année précédente -, l'enjeu est de taille.

Madeleine Albright, ancien chef de la diplomatie de Bill Clinton, a fait remarquer que le don de Warren Buffett dépassait largement à lui seul le montant de l'aide publique américaine pour l'humanitaire et le développement, que le Congrès cherche à réduire. De manière éclatante, Bill Gates et Warren Buffett montrent, eux, qu'une autre voie américaine est possible.

Sylvie Kauffmann
Article paru dans l'édition du 01.07.0

Giving - A Conversation With Warren Buffett

FORTUNE on CNNMoney.com
By Carol J. Loomis

FORTUNE exclusive: Editor-at-large Carol Loomis speaks with Buffett on why he sped up his plan to give away his money and why he chose the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Coming from you, this plan is pretty startling. Up to now you haven't been famous for giving away money. In fact, you've been roundly criticized now and then for not giving it away. So let's cut to the obvious question: Are you ill?

No, absolutely not. I feel terrific, and when I had my last physical, in October, my doctor gave me a clean bill of health.

Then what's going on here? Does your change in plans have something to do with Susie's death?

Yes, it does. Susie was two years younger than I, and women usually live longer than men. She and I always assumed that she would inherit my Berkshire stock and be the one who oversaw the distribution of our wealth to society, where both of us had always said it would go.

And Susie would have enjoyed overseeing the process. She was a little afraid of it, in terms of scaling up. But she would have liked doing it, and would have been very good at it. And she would really have stepped on the gas.

By that you mean that she always wanted to give away more money, faster, than you did?

Yes, she said that many times. As for me, I always had the idea that philanthropy was important today, but would be equally important in one year, ten years, 20 years, and the future generally.

And someone who was compounding money at a high rate, I thought, was the better party to be taking care of the philanthropy that was to be done 20 years out, while the people compounding at a lower rate should logically take care of the current philanthropy.

But that theory also happened to fit what you wanted to do, right?

(He laughs, hard.) And how! No question about that. I was having fun - and still am having fun - doing what I do. And for a while I also thought in terms of control of Berkshire.

I had bought effective control of Berkshire in the early 1970s, using $15 million I got when I disbanded Buffett Partnership. And I had very little money - considerably less than $1 million - outside of Berkshire. My salary was $50,000 a year.

So if I had engaged in significant philanthropy back then, I would have had to give away shares of Berkshire. I hadn't bought those to immediately give them away.

Even so, you and Susie set up the Buffett Foundation way back in the 1960s, which means you obviously expected to be giving away money sometime. What was your thinking back then?

Well, when we got married in 1952, I told Susie I was going to be rich. That wasn't going to be because of any special virtues of mine or even because of hard work, but simply because I was born with the right skills in the right place at the right time.

I was wired at birth to allocate capital and was lucky enough to have people around me early on - my parents and teachers and Susie - who helped me to make the most of that.

In any case, Susie didn't get very excited when I told her we were going to get rich. She either didn't care or didn't believe me - probably both, in fact. But to the extent we did amass wealth, we were totally in sync about what to do with it - and that was to give it back to society.

In that, we agreed with Andrew Carnegie, who said that huge fortunes that flow in large part from society should in large part be returned to society. In my case, the ability to allocate capital would have had little utility unless I lived in a rich, populous country in which enormous quantities of marketable securities were traded and were sometimes ridiculously mispriced. And fortunately for me, that describes the U.S. in the second half of the last century.

Certainly neither Susie nor I ever thought we should pass huge amounts of money along to our children. Our kids are great. But I would argue that when your kids have all the advantages anyway, in terms of how they grow up and the opportunities they have for education, including what they learn at home - I would say it's neither right nor rational to be flooding them with money.

In effect, they've had a gigantic headstart in a society that aspires to be a meritocracy. Dynastic mega-wealth would further tilt the playing field that we ought to be trying instead to level.

From the fact that you've given your kids money before to set up foundations and are planning to give them more now, I gather you don't think that kind of flooding them with money is wrong.

No, I don't. What they're doing with their foundations is giving money back to society - just where Susie and I thought it should go. And they aren't just writing checks: They've put enormous thought and effort into the process.

I'm very proud of them for the way they've handled it all, and I have no doubt they're going to keep on the right track.

So what about the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and what all this means for it?

As you know, because as a director you've seen it close up, Allen Greenberg, the foundation's president, has done an excellent and thoughtful job of running it. His results-to-cost ratio is as good as I've ever seen. And he'll keep on that same path now, not just with Susie's money, but with mine too.

Actually, if I had died before Susie and she had begun to distribute our wealth, this is the foundation that would have scaled up to a much bigger size - right now it has only five employees - and become her main vehicle for giving. And the foundation anchored my plans too. Until I changed my thoughts about when to give, this was to be where my fortune would go also.

And what changed your mind?

The short answer is that I came to realize that there was a terrific foundation that was already scaled-up - that wouldn't have to go through the real grind of getting to a megasize like the Buffett Foundation would - and that could productively use my money now.

The longer answer is that over the years I had gotten to know Bill and Melinda Gates well, spent a lot of time with them having fun and, way beyond that, had grown to admire what they were doing with their foundation. I've seen them give presentations about its programs, and I'm always amazed at the enthusiasm and passion and energy they're pouring into their work. They've gone at it, you might say, with both head and heart.

Bill reads many thousands of pages annually keeping up with medical advances and means of delivering help. Melinda, often with Bill along, travels the world looking at how well good intentions are being converted into good results. Life has dealt a terrible hand to literally billions of people around the world, and Bill and Melinda are bent on reducing that inequity to the extent they possibly can.

If you think about it - if your goal is to return the money to society by attacking truly major problems that don't have a commensurate funding base - what could you find that's better than turning to a couple of people who are young, who are ungodly bright, whose ideas have been proven, who already have shown an ability to scale it up and do it right?

You don't get an opportunity like that ordinarily. I'm getting two people enormously successful at something, where I've had a chance to see what they've done, where I know they will keep doing it - where they've done it with their own money, so they're not living in some fantasy world - and where in general I agree with their reasoning. If I've found the right vehicle for my goal, there's no reason to wait.

Compare what I'm doing with them to my situation at Berkshire, where I have talented and proven people in charge of our businesses. They do a much better job than I could in running their operations.

What can be more logical, in whatever you want done, than finding someone better equipped than you are to do it? Who wouldn't select Tiger Woods to take his place in a high-stakes golf game? That's how I feel about this decision about my money.

People will be very curious, I think, as to how much your decision - and its announcement at this particular time - is connected to Bill Gates' announcement in mid-June that he would phase out of his operating responsibilities at Microsoft and begin to devote most of his time to the foundation. What's the story here?

I realize that the close timing of the two announcements will suggest they're related. But they aren't in the least. The timing is just happenstance. I would be disclosing my plans right now whether or not he had announced his move - and even, in fact, if he were indefinitely keeping on with all of his work at Microsoft.

On the other hand, I'm pleased that he's going to be devoting more time to the foundation. And I think he and Melinda are pleased to know they're going to be working with more resources.

Does it occur to you that it's somewhat ironic for the second-richest man in the world to be giving untold billions to the first-richest man?

When you put it that way, it sounds pretty funny. But in truth, I'm giving it through him - and, importantly, Melinda as well - not to him.

Some people say the Gates foundation is bureaucratic, and bureaucracy is just about your No. 1 dislike. So how do you react to that charge?

I would say that most large organizations - though Berkshire is a shining exception - are bureaucratic to some degree. Anyway, what some people really mean when they claim that the Gates foundation is bureaucratic is that big decisions don't get made by anybody except Bill and Melinda. That suits me fine. I want the two of them to make the big calls.

What is the significance of your going on the board of the Gates foundation?

Not much. The biggest reason for my doing that is if they were ever to go down on an airplane together. Beyond that, I hope to have a constructive thought now and then. But I don't think I'm as well cut out to be a philanthropist as Bill and Melinda are. The feedback on philanthropy is very slow, and that would bother me. I'd have to be too involved with a lot of people I wouldn't want to be involved with and have to listen to more opinions than I would enjoy.

In philanthropy also, you have to make some big mistakes. I know that. But it would bother me more to make the mistakes myself, rather than having someone else make them whom I trust overall to do a good job. In general, Bill and Melinda will have a better batting average than I would.

Did you talk this huge decision over with other people before deciding to go ahead with the plan?

Yes, I talked to my children and Allen Greenberg, and to four Berkshire directors, including my son Howard and Charlie Munger. I got lots of questions, and some people had qualms about the plan initially because it was such an abrupt change from what they had been anticipating.

But I'd say everybody, and that certainly includes Allen - who knows what a bear it would have been to scale up the Buffett Foundation - came around to seeing the logic of what I was proposing to do. Now all concerned can't wait to get started - particularly me.

And frankly, I have some small hopes that what I'm doing might encourage other very rich people thinking about philanthropy to decide they didn't necessarily have to set up their own foundations but could look around for the best of those that were up and running and available to handle their money.

People do that all the time with their investments. They put their money with people they think are going to do a better job than they could. There's some real merit to extending that thought to your wealth, rather than setting up something to be run after your death by a bunch of old business cronies or a staff that eventually comes to dictate the agenda.

Some version of this plan I've got is not a crazy thing for some of the next 20 people who are going to die with $1 billion or more to adopt themselves. One problem most rich people have is that they're old, with contemporaries who are not at their peak years and who don't have much time ahead of them. I'm lucky in that respect in that I can turn to younger people.

Okay, now what does that mean for Berkshire?

I'd say virtually nothing. Anybody who knows me also knows how I feel about making Berkshire as good as it can be, and that goal is still going to be there. I won't do anything differently, because I'm not capable of doing things differently. The name on the stock certificates will change, but nothing else will.

I've always made it clear to Berkshire's shareholders that my wealth from the company would go to philanthropy, so the fact that I'm starting the process is basically a nonevent for them. And, you know, though this may surprise some people, it's a nonevent for me too in some ways.

Ted Turner, whose philanthropic activities I admire enormously, once told me that his hands shook when he signed a $1 billion pledge. Well, I have zero of that. To me, there's just no emotional downside to this at all.

Won't the foundations that are getting your stock need to sell it?

Yes, in some cases. The Buffett Foundation and the kids' foundations will have to sell their stock relatively soon after they get it, because it will be their only asset - and they'll need to raise cash to give away.

The Gates foundation will have more options because it has lots of other assets, so it will have some flexibility to choose which it should turn into cash. Bill and Melinda will make the decisions about that. I'm going to totally insulate myself from any investment decisions their foundation makes, which leaves them free to do whatever they think makes sense.

Perhaps they will decide to sell bigger portions of other assets and hang on to some Berkshire. It's a great mix of businesses and wouldn't be an inappropriate asset for a foundation to own. But I won't tie the foundation up in any shape or form.

So it could be that all the shares you give annually will be sold in the market?

Yes, that may well happen. And naturally people are going to be interested in whether that selling could weigh down Berkshire's price. I don't think so in the least - and that's true even though the annual turnover ratio for Berkshire has been running only about 15% a year, which is extremely low for large-cap stocks.

Let's say the five foundations sell all the stock they get this year. If trading volume continues as it has, their selling will raise turnover to less than 17%. It would be ridiculous to think that much new selling could affect the price of the stock.

In fact, the added supply could even be beneficial in increasing the stock's liquidity and should make it more likely that Berkshire would eventually be included in the S&P 500.

I'd say this: I would not be making the gifts if they would in any way harm Berkshire's shareholders. And they won't.

This plan seems to settle the fate, over the long term, of all your Berkshire shares. Does that mean you're giving nothing to your family in straight-out gifts?

No, what I've always said is that my family won't receive huge amounts of my net worth. That doesn't mean they'll get nothing. My children have already received some money from me and Susie and will receive more.

I still believe in the philosophy - FORTUNE quoted me saying this 20 years ago - that a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing. [The FORTUNE article was "Should You Leave It All to the Children?" Sept. 29, 1986.]

Remember I said that way back when I was buying Berkshire, I had less than $1 million in outside cash? Well, I've made a few decent investments with that money in the years since - taking positions that were too small for Berkshire, doing some fixed-income arbitrage, and selling my interest in a bank that was split off from Berkshire.

So I'm glad to say I've got quite a bit of cash now. Overall I can - and will - use all my Berkshire shares for philanthropic purposes and will have plenty left over to provide well for all those close to me.