Beginning in 1982, one major charitable organization contributed billions of dollars to causes across the globe. Recipients included Cornell University, UCSF, and other schools; African AIDS relief; Vietnam’s health care system; peace in Ireland; issues like abolition of the death penalty and promotion of America’s Affordable Care Act; and many other causes.
The charitable trust was called Atlantic Philanthropies, and it gave away billions of dollars. Although they had a few hundred employees at offices scattered around the world, the organization and its founder maintained anonymity. Nobody really knew who they were. Few people knew that one modest man stood behind the entire philanthropic endeavor.
Due to the secrecy, the press called him the James Bond of Philanthropy.
His name was Charles Feeney. Everyone called him Chuck. The Irish-American Catholic enjoyed doing good deeds for others, but he never sought thanks or acclaim for any of them.
In the last 20+ years of his life, Chuck and his wife lived simply and frugally in a rented two-bedroom San Francisco apartment. He didn’t own it. Nor did he own a car. Instead, he took public transportation.
Over the course of his life, he gave away billions of dollars. And it was always his intention to die broke.
Chuck Feeney was born and raised in New Jersey in 1931. He eventually joined the US Air Force. Thanks to the GI Bill, he attended Cornell University in 1952, the first member of his family to go to college.
1960: He and a fellow Cornell student founded Duty Free Shops at airports all over the world. That was how Chuck amassed his fortune. He sold off his shares to a conglomerate in the 1990s.
In 1997, fifteen years after Atlantic Philanthropies started, Chuck’s identity first became public. The so-called James Bond of Philanthropy still preferred to remain out of the spotlight, however.
With his assets from the sale of his Duty Free Shops, Feeney invested in start-up internet companies Facebook, E-trade, Priceline, and others. He amassed billions.
Chuck owned homes all over the world, but eventually he and his wife sold them all off by the end of the 20th Century. Instead, they set aside $2 million for their golden years and lived a quiet life in San Francisco. Chuck then focused his remaining years on his philanthropy.
Rather than creating a charity that doles out money upon the creator’s death, Feeney introduced what he called Giving While Living. His steadfast goal was to give away all of his wealth while he was still alive. He thought it was more fun. To that end, he conceived an idea called Zero is the Hero - giving his entire fortune away before he died.
Feeney paid for the construction of over 1,000 buildings around the world. But, humble as ever, he left naming rights to other wealthy people as incentive to match his donations. As a result, none of the buildings or wings bear his name.
Atlantic Philanthropies made its last charitable grant in 2016 and shuttered for good in 2020.
By the time Chuck Feeney died in 2023 at age 92, he had succeeded at his goal. The modest, secretive philanthropist gave away his entire fortune - over $8 billion.
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