“Three-quarters of the original U.S. Giving Pledgers who are still alive remain billionaires today,” according to IPS. “They have collectively gotten far wealthier since they signed, while just eight of 22 deceased Pledgers fulfilled their pledges.”
Although French Gates said there’s more to be done by billionaires in terms of philanthropic giving, she clarified that her criticism didn’t apply to all who signed the Giving Pledge. “Okay, have those people actually been giving money? Some of them, yes, some of them at massive scale,” she said. “We are trying to demonstrate through the pledge that you can give at massive scale.”
“Once you start, you can build a flywheel, and then we’re trying to demonstrate for them: Go big,” French Gates said. “You can go big, you can go bold.”
