Special Edition 18: The Great Philanthropists - Steve and Connie Ballmer
Welcome to another edition of Around with Randall, your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.
So excited to have you join me. This edition on a round with Randall. Today we hop back into our Great Philanthropist series to find out what we can learn from those who are the people who are driving the fundraising efforts that our nonprofits so much need. Those relationships, what are they telling us? And we've done about 16 of these over the course of time.
There's no regular pattern to them. When I see something, read something, I think maybe it's time to elevate that conversation. And today we do so with the Bulmers. Steve and Connie Ballmer are part of the Microsoft world, which we'll get into in a moment. But what I find interesting is some of the commentary that I read recently that aligns with what I talk about regularly, about the whole that philanthropy feels somewhere between free enterprise and government.
And we'll circle back to that here towards the tail end of our discussion today. Steve Ballmer eventually became the CEO of Microsoft prior to that. Born in Detroit, Michigan, in the 1950s, grew up in a family where mom and dad were, you know, working and doing good things. Where he began to stand out academically is he scored a perfect 800 on his SAT math.
That's surprising when you think about the relationship he has with Microsoft and software and engineering. His education at Harvard in 1977, in mathematics and economics, worked for a while for Procter and Gamble, and eventually became the 30th employee of Microsoft in 1980. He became CEO in 2001, led the company for 14 years, and as he was departing, obviously had immense stock in the organization, that he had acquired during his 30 years of working there, 30 plus years estimated net worth somewhere in the $121 billion range, and also owns, for those who don't know, the Los Angeles Clippers, which used to be the Sandy Clippers of the NBA, which he purchased in 2014.
His wife, which is very easy to see, is all of his equal, if not more, is Connie Ballmer. She was actually born in Oregon. Growing growing up there, attended the University of Oregon, studied in journalism, and then became a social worker. The two of them met, while actually Connie was in college, and they were married in 1990.
They have three children, of which they're very private, particularly one of the boys. When you do some research, doesn't have any kind of connection verbally or anything else to the Ballmer name. All of their philanthropy started when Steve not all, but the great majority of the thought of their philanthropy started when Steve Ballmer retired in 2014.
He was about 58 years old at the time. And I find it very ironic because that's when my father sold his company. And we're not talking about the same kind of wealth, but they both had a very similar conversation with themselves. And I guess the world in that they said, well, I'm going to try to retire. And in both cases it really didn't work because you're 58 and you've done great things, and all of a sudden you realize that there's still more to give, more to do, more to invest of yourself, to make the world a better place.
Typically with great fortune, Ballmer and his wife started the Ballmer Group, which is their philanthropic arm. Interestingly enough, there was a large building in one day. Not too long. According to the stories. After he retired, Steve came home and looked at Connie and said, I'm taking the 30th floor. She says the whole 30th floor of the building that they owned.
What are we? The whole thing. And now they've got multiple floors. What's interesting is, is that their philanthropy was what I would call evolutionary. They are discovering it, at least the way you read their conversation, with different publications and how they talk about it. In 2015, it really began to push. The mission was to drive economic mobility for children's and families in the United States.
And that's that whole that we're going to get to in a second. Some of their key philanthropic investments over the last several years, they have done very strong in investments work, in particular with children's Mental Health. They made a $425 million gift to the University of Oregon in 2022, which created the Bulmer Institute for Children's Behavioral Health. Obviously, the pandemic illuminate, and I think for so many, the needs of kids in particular when it comes to mental and behavioral health, the real goal was, is to address the workforce shortages that are necessary to help these kids that are in need.
Other philanthropic efforts include the Youth Economic Mobility Effort $175 million in 2023. They have been very supportive of the public sector technology grants, but I think where I want to start, two things that we can learn and the reason we do these again, great philanthropist series is what is it that we can learn that we can apply in our own nonprofit world, on our own nonprofit work?
The first is something that I read that Connie indicated that their philanthropy started, as she says, at the kitchen table, that they sat down as a family, in particular, Connie, with the kids, talking about the needs of those that weren't as fortunate, whether it be the underserved, foster children, foster families, that they could do things well. Before Steve Ballmer was bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in stock options.
And I think that that's an important place to start. We tend to think that philanthropy at this level is grand, and there's certainly an impact. I mean, I don't think anybody would deny that, but I think there's a missing component here. Philanthropy, as we've discussed many times, and those of us I think of probably for myself, a leader in the industry, try to articulate the philanthropy isn't about money.
Philanthropy, in its original Greek and Latin derivation is love of mankind, love of humankind. The reason I appreciated what I read when Connie Ballmer talked about the foundation of their philanthropy, she highlighted how important those moments were in trying to help those in need when they didn't have all the money they have today. There are so many people that want to help, and I think this is going to be one of those trans relational moments over the next ten years or so as we transition and generations, we lose probably almost all of the silent generation, some of those born before or just during World War Two.
The baby boomers become of age and we start moving into, well, generation X, we pretty much forget I'm one of them. Nobody seems to care. But the millennials begin to drive it. There's a larger generation now and growing every day in terms of their size and their the amount of people in that generation that are coming of age that their involvement in nonprofits is to them, is equally as important as their money.
Does the values align? And so the first lesson that I think we can take from all of this is that even though Connie Ballmer could talk about and maybe does in other circumstances, but I found this one moment where she talked about the family and the starting of this, and how important it was when they were young and starting to, you know, obviously doing fairly well at Microsoft, but not in the billions that it was just as important then for what they could do as it was now, that it created a foundation, no pun intended, for their kids to understand the values.
Philanthropy. When we want to work with people, whether they have billions or whether they have a dollar, is about impact, about how do we get them to see what we do, and at the same time talk about what they want to do. Is there a connection? Can we connect the two things together? So number one, from a tactical perspective is don't ever lose sight.
Based on what Connie Ballmer said in and quoted a couple different places about how important philanthropy is, just as a base instinct to me, because people want to do the right thing and want to make the world a better place. The second is something I mentioned. At the top, I talk about where philanthropy for me, always lands in a completely macro perspective.
That, and I tend to talk about at the end of the podcast. Maybe not each one of them, but a number of them that philanthropy nonprofits serve this whole that when it comes to the things that are economic in our society, that government does some of them, and we talk about roads and trash and, you know, things that we think fire, police, basic necessities and we think about for enterprise cleaning businesses, the problem is, is that there is a gap in the middle and government isn't efficient enough, quick enough to get into that space.
And it's not profitable for the for enterprise companies because their job and desires to make money and nonprofits live in this space. And Steve Ballmer and Connie Ballmer talk about this in terms of upward mobility, that the willingness and the desire to help people have opportunities to come out of that hole to enter into. Maybe they work for the government, maybe they work for enterprise.
But there's a whole and this upward mobility is quintessential in providing the American dream. I didn't see anything specific, but I have to imagine that they might tell us, as many large philanthropists do, that sometimes. Not only is it hard work, and obviously Steve and Connie Ballmer have worked incredibly hard and been very successful. Sometimes it's good luck that people walk into great success.
They didn't find that hole. And while I am 1/1,000,000,000,000 of a percent of Steve Ballmer, I understand that concept. I was born into a family that had great opportunities. I was given opportunity as I grew. I had parents as mentors who fostered that opportunity and allowed me to figure out what I was doing. And my mom always talked about that.
The primary job was to create opportunity through making sure the kids were safe and that they were somewhat happy, just they had they had a chance, they were loved. And then I had all these advantages. And I look around and say, why me? It's nothing simple as I was born under this country.
I get a sense that there's a lot of that in the bombers, and I get a sense that some of our largest philanthropists are asking some of those same questions now. They may steer it into health care, they may steer it into education. They may steer it into what I would call basic needs and services. But more and more people I really, really believe are trying to figure out how do they provide opportunity to people not to take care of them forever, but to give them a hand up?
What makes them the bombers unique in this process is it's, first of all, an incredibly bilateral relationship. They talk about it that, Steve, is kind of this systematic change and using of data, where Connie really talks about community input in and child mobility, kind of the macro and the micro, and they compliment each other and that they build upon that.
And that is a part of their decision making process. They talk about how data helps them better understand the support that they provide, that when they do it at their best, they what they know is, is that data helps them figure out how to fill that hole by helping people get upwardly mobile. And in doing so, they have to create a sense of trust.
They talk about. And we did a podcast on this, in the 80s, I believe, on trust based philanthropy, where they give the money and they say, we report to us, we're going to trust you. There's not as many strings attached to it that there's great deference to that nonprofit. One of the stories that I appreciated the most was when they attended very quietly, which would be hard to do when you're worth $125 billion.
I mean, not around a lot of really important wealthy people, but there ain't a lot of people above $100 million. And I think most people would say who watch Steve Ballmer. I certainly don't know. I've never met him, but he owns the Clippers and you see him gesticulating on bad calls by the officials or when a bad so I don't think he's probably the quietest, most reserved, you know, sit in the back of the room type guy.
Yes. On my part. But when he does it it's effective. He and his wife attended basically a Ted talk like symposium of nonprofits. Nine different call it pitches, speeches about what they thought they could do to make the world a better place. Anything nonprofit, anything needed in making humankind better. So the story goes. They sat in the back of the room and really, nobody knew they were there.
And they sat and they listened and they took notes, never making themselves known, and kind of snuck out. That's really fascinating that there's such as we talk about with Maslow's self-actualization, they don't need to make it about themselves. What they came out of it was nearly $1 billion, about 300, about three quarters of $1 billion in support to three climate based nonprofits that spoke that day, who didn't even know they were there.
Our greatest philanthropists, for the most part, aren't the ones who want their names on the side of the building. They're the ones who sit in the back of the room and are trying to figure out how do they make a difference. So every time you tell your story, talk about the value that you deliver as a nonprofit, how important it is to the greater community, the greater mankind.
And then have the privilege of talking with people who can support that and asking what they think and what their passion is, and it's to find out if there's a connection. Asking for $10 isn't much different than asking for 10 billion. It's all about scale. I think that's the lesson that I take from Steve and Connie Ballmer. So they talk about they want to scale things up, that they want to be quicker to that that hole between government and the private sector, for profit businesses, they want to react, have those to react to them, but they're not putting their name in lights.
Their kids aren't putting their name in lights. What they're doing is they're trying to figure out how to make a difference in what they do. So the more you tell your story not about how great you are, but the impact of the people you effect and how you make the world a better place, whatever that part of the world is.
It's really a basic message. There are people out there that will support you, but you have to make phone calls and go see people and tell the story over and over, because you never know when there's a bomb or couple sitting in the back of the room who might find great interest in what you want as you serve that hole between government and the private enterprise world.
Don't forget to check out the blogs at How to be.com. Just a week. Tuesday, Thursday they come out, read them 90s really about the nonprofit world leadership experiences give you something to think about. And of course, if you want to email me, you can email me a podcast at Health Links with.com. Our world needs people like Stephen Connie Ballmer.
They need people. We need people to make a difference. And what I'm hoping today is, is that there's a simplicity that comes even at the largest levels that we can understand, and at the same time understand how data and impact and how mobile, how quick philanthropy can be in comparison to the government world to scale up things. The Ballmer's were doing that, and you never know who's sitting in the room when you talk, when you tell the story of the impact.
That's the lessons of the Ballmer's and it's evolving. They're not done. We'll learn more. But if we don't take from all of these great philanthropists, they're telling us what they want. They're telling us how to do this. Then we're missing out on the opportunities for the resources. They're going to make a difference for your nonprofit and your community.
It's the essence of some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. And then there are those who wondered what happened to what I say at the end of every podcast. The bomber, people making things happen, you're making things happen. We need to find more of that connection so more that can happen for those people and places, organizations and things in our community that are wondering what happened.
We'll jump back into the normal scope, finding different things to talk about inside the tactical elements of a 20 minute conversation every week about nonprofit world. Thank you for taking the time today. Hope you learned something and I'll look forward to seeing you the next time. Right here on a round with Randall. Don't forget. Make it a great day.