Dishing out the dough

Apparently there is an organization called The Giving Back Fund that releases a list every year of the biggest celebrity givers. Good ol’ Oprah is at the top of their list this year with $50.2 million in givings-awayness. This is a nice big number. I whole-heartedly am a fan of people (including those with uber amounts of money) who donate to deserving charities and organizations. And by deserving this means I probably wouldn’t really have let Mel Gibson creep onto my list just because he gave $9.9 million to the church he is a member of in Malibu, the Holy Family Church. Granted, I could be totally wrong, but I’m guessing the ways in which this money were used wouldn’t all fall under what I believe in as ‘good things’. But I’m actually getting away from the point I wanted to make here. Let’s get to that…

This list compiled by the Giving Back Fund is one of several that comes out letting us peons know how much the really rich are donating. But here’s the thing, the lists are always in absolute numbers. What I want to know is, how much of their earnings or worth are they donating?

So let’s just use Oprah as our example then. 2007 she gave $50.2 million, purportedly earned $275 million and was estimated to be worth $1 billion. Only figuring based on her earnings that means Oprah gave away 18.25% of her earnings in 2007. I think Oprah deserves props for this. According to the census people the median household income in the U.S. in 2004 was $50,233. If the average American household was then donating just over $9,000 they’d be on par with Oprah. I know I’m definitely not donating 18% of what I make. Even when you do the calculations based on Oprah’s worth she donated approximately 5%. Still a decent figure.

Now let’s take some of my favorite people, possibly my favorite family, the Waltons. I couldn’t find estimates of their yearly income, so I can only do this based on their worth. If you combine all the kids-wives-in-laws who inherited money when the big Sam passed away they are worth an estimated $93.1 billion (and take up four of the top ten spots on the Forbes list). Now if the Waltons were giving away the same level that Oprah apparently is that’d be $4.6 billion. How much did they give? From what I can find a low number of $241 million from just the Walton Family Foundation and a high of $643 million when you add corporate grants. Meaning they are giving 0.26% to 0.69% of their worth. That’s like the average American household giving $130 to $345 over the course of a year. But the Waltons don’t have to worry about bills or health insurance or unexpected living costs, etc, etc, etc.

Pretty much what I’m saying is I’d be way more impressed to find out someone was donating 20% of their worth than knowing someone donated $75 million, but then realizing that that amount was the equivalent of me doling out 20 bucks.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are at the top of Forbes’ U.S. richest peeps list, so at least our American richest are some of the world’s best givers. That’s nice.

- suse

P.S. Here’s a fun site for y’all. Made me feel not so poor.