September 24, 2020

As Billionaires Get Richer During the Pandemic, Here’s One Who Anonymously Gave Everything Away—All $8 Billion

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After 38 years of secret donations, a billionaire many times over has, at 89, given away all $8 billion to schools, charities, and foundations. Chuck Feeney of San Francisco has walked the walk after amassing his fortune as a co-founder of Duty Free Shoppers, following through on a pledge to empty his pockets for a clearer conscience. (His name became public only after the duty-free stores were sold and a lawsuit over the sale would’ve revealed his anonymous donations.)

As my colleague Mark Helenowski visualized in a must-watch video revealing the staggering wealth accumulated by a tiny few during the pandemic, this period of crisis has been a payout for billionaires. Almost 650 of them have grown their collective wealth by an estimated $685 billion since March. Watch his animated video and take stock in—uh, take into account (uh, take into consideration)—the fact that while many superwealthy get superwealthier, at least one has taken steps to change course.

I can hear your begrudging applause. I too am inclined not to applaud too loudly because Recharge’s coffers have not been lined with Feeney’s billions. If any billionaires get in touch at recharge@motherjones.com, I’d be amenable to putting you in contact with my colleagues in our giving department.

Goodness in the world:

Double win. Actors Ron and Jasmine Cephas Jones have become the first father-daughter pair to win Emmys at the same time. Well done.

Marching on. This Saturday is the fourth annual March for Black Women, held virtually to keep marchers socially distanced. Speakers include Rep. Ilhan Omar, Gina Belafonte (daughter of Harry Belafonte), and Opal Tometi, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter.

Soaring. Teenage trumpeters Maglyn Bertrand and Tatjana Lightbourn are the new Louis Armstrong House Museum fellows and they’re planning virtual tours and blogs to highlight Armstrong’s home and legacy.

Screening. The LA Asian Pacific Film Festival is showing Francis Wong: Chinatown Revolutionary, a look at the pioneering San Francisco–based saxophonist and activist who co-founded Asian Improv aRTS with Jon Jang—who, together, merge their depth of music with historical narratives and a commitment to justice. Catch my interview with Jang.

If you have a Recharge story or just want a direct word of recognition, let us know at recharge@motherjones.com.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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