The Death of Big Charity
By Phil DeMuth
Mindy Rosenthal of the Institute for Private Investors has been interviewing young ultra-high-net worth investors. These individuals, most of whose families are worth over $100 million, do not respond to surveys or questionnaires; you have to know someone to get to them. That makes her data set uniquely valuable. One disruptive juggernaut lurking within it is the attitude of the young and the ultra-affluent (could that be the title of a soap opera?) toward charity.
While their parents were happy to write elephantine checks to the “American Big Disease Association” or the “Big City Cultural Institution” or “Ye Olde Ivy College Foundation” or the “Mainline Church Denomination”, the kids (and by kids here I mean from age 18 through their 30s) have little interest in outfits like these.
