Special Edition: Great Philanthropists - Charles Feeney - Not Waiting to See, Hear the Impact

Welcome to another edition of “Around with Randall;” Your weekly podcast on making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett. 

It is great to have you here with me on, “Around with Randall” today, a little bit of a look at great philanthropists. We do about one of these a month looking for themes of philanthropy. The first episode we found out about how data truly drives people's decision-making. In the second week, we talked about the value of having someone who is the caretaker of your community.

Can you figure out who those individuals are? Today, we switched to another mode, or another hopefully learned lessons from the great philanthropists. Today, we talk about Charles Francis Feeney and I had never heard of him, but I should have. My guess is many people hadn't either. 

Mr. Feeney was born in 1931, here in the United States, and was raised on the east coast. He ended up going into the military and figured out as a part of his own educational interests that when you are traveling, and you go through security that you are in a unique position when it comes to taxes. In particular, if you take something from one country to another and you pay a tax on that, or a duty, as it's called. While in the military, he figured out that if you did this correctly, you could sell things to military personnel who were either going from the United States to a posting, or from the posting back to the United States and eliminate potentially their taxes. He, at that point, began to work with military personnel to do things and purchase things like cars -- let alone what we think of today in terms of alcohol or other things that might come along in terms of travel. Really, he had the great breakthrough when he received the exclusive contract to do this in Hawaiian airports, to leverage those going to the Far East, going home. Meaning they could buy things in these particular stores or commerce once they're inside the airport to not have to pay a tax when they go back to Japan. If you've done any traveling, you may be able to figure this out, but really who he is in terms of a business perspective, he's the founder of the duty-free shops. As someone who's done a great deal of traveling in large airports, you see these everywhere. It was Chuck Feeney who was the founder of this particular company. They're all over the world in airports, literally, if the airport even has one international flight at all, they've got a duty-free shop. 

As a part of this process, he accumulated a great deal of wealth and what I found interesting when doing a little bit of reading about Mr. Feeney was how he viewed the wealth, that it really was never his. In the early 1980s, he founded what became his charitable arm, which thought of or called, because it was dissolved, which we'll get to in a second, The Atlantic Philanthropies.

This group was how he gave his money away, which is not unusual. What is unusual is that he maintained with the other co-founder of the duty-free shops, a huge holding on its ownership except something happened in 1984 that he never told anyone about. He gave all of his interests in the duty-free shops to his charity, and never told a soul, and began a pursuit of giving his money away. In doing so, it wasn't till the late 1990s when an owner, which I think actually became Louis Vuitton came and wanted to buy them. There was all of this disclosure, which meant all of a sudden this had to become public information. What also became public information because of that is that Mr. Feeney was giving away billions of dollars and nobody knew it.

So, let's talk about where the money went to, and then we'll talk about why he did what he did.  Mr. Feeney has given away $3.7 billion to education, by the way, not only the United States. He has given it to Australia, Vietnam, Ireland, and to various places around the world. He has given, Cornell, his Alma Mater probably the most in terms of cumulative giving, which he didn't pay to go to Cornell. He went through the GI bill, having served in the military. He's given $870 million, almost a billion dollars to human rights and social change opportunities. He's given $62 million to try to abolish the death penalty around the world. He's given $76 million to grassroots organizations. He's given $700 million to health-related issues. $270 million grant to Vietnam to improve their healthcare for their citizens that are being left behind. Another $176 million to the Global Brain Health Institute. He's a very generous man.

He's also very frugal in the last decade or so it's come out that he still wears his $10 Casio watch. He never flew anything but commercial until he was 75 years old. In fact, flew coach. He carried his reading materials in a plastic bag. When he made these gifts, we listed the various kind of industries and places that he gave them to, he would make them sign confidentiality agreements. It wasn't until the first part of the 21st century, kind of halfway through the first decade, 2005, 2006, 2007, there was an autobiography where finally people began to realize how much money he was giving. Which brings us to the point of this particular podcast -- why did I pick him? There’s a lot of generous people. It’s because Mr. Feeney is still alive today. He has given away, they estimate, and by accounting records about $8 billion in his lifetime. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, and he has a net value of $2 million. When he founded Atlantic Philanthropies, what he said was I'm going to spend the rest of my life, giving my money away until I get down to somewhere between $1.5 and $2 million that I can live on for whatever days are left. I am not sure he ever thought 2021 was coming for him. I'm not saying he didn't. All I know is there was a plan. He finally shut down, closed down Atlantic Philanthropies in 2020, because it was out of money. He'd given it all away.

We deal with so many people who want to be generous and they are so wonderful when they do, but how many people do we know that would give away 99.99% of their money and leave just enough for them to live on in their final days. Being a philanthropist should be an elevating, life-affirming, life calling, vocational role, and accolade that we provide to only those few who make a difference, but I don't even know how to describe what someone like Mr. Feeney means to our world.

He said two things recently that I found interesting. He's not only very confidential; he's somewhat of a recluse. He's not a public figure by choice, but I found two interesting statements that he made. Why did he give, because there's a logic in helping people now, but the quote that I found most interesting is that if you give when you're dead, you don't feel anything. I talk a lot about the work that people like Jerold Panas have done in our industry in his research, like with Mega Gifts. I use it in my consulting in my presentations and conversations. There's the number one reason people give is because it feels good. Bill and Melinda Gates have talked about it in their open letter a couple of years ago. Warren Buffet has talked about it, but nobody seems to be living it like Chuck Feeney. 

Giving when dead, you don't feel anything. It's a great example, whether we're dealing with someone like Chuck Feeney, giving away a billion dollars, or someone who's giving $20, how do you help them feel the value of changing lives? Who are those people in your community that want more for others to be better in this world than they do for themselves? If you're looking for an identification process and trying to figure out who are the people you should be engaging, the Chuck Feeney's are the ones we're looking for. The people who think other people's lives have more value than their own, because all the advantage has been given to him or to someone in your community who wants to make a difference. The other thing is for 20 years or more, nobody had any clue that Chuck Feeney was doing what he was doing. Who is it in your community that's not interested in the accolades? Who is it that actually just wants to see the community people be a better place?

Seeing people for more than they're worth than the community thinks they're worth that the community places value on because that's what philanthropy is about. Love of others. Number two, those that don't want the accolades that just want to do the work who want to make their world a better place -- Chuck Feeney, great philanthropist. I hope today we learned something about how we can be looking for more individuals, couples, people like that. 

Don't forget to check out the blogs on the website. I write three a week or so. Some interesting things going on, really important for our world. 300-350 words, probably 90 second reads total but it might help you think about philanthropy in a little different way. 

I also want to make sure that you can get ahold of me. If you want to email, that's podcast at hallettphilanthropy.com. I'll remind you as I always do my favorite all-time saying. “Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. And then there are those who wanted what happened.” Today, we heard about Chuck Feeney, making things happen for people wondering what happened. He did so in such anonymity that no one knew about it until it was no longer able to be hidden. We need more people like that. It's the truest example of what a philanthropist is. I hope you know that you play an important role with a lot of people who could be the Chuck Feeney for your organization and your community. I hope you keep reaching to find those people, build those relationships, explain the value that your mission and the organization you represent. Most importantly, realize that what you're doing is a vocational call to make the world a better place. I appreciate you joining the short version of “Around with Randall” on the Great Philanthropist Series. We'll see you next time right here, and don't forget, make it a great day.