If you were a billionaire

[Gardnr]

Gard, I love your donation on behalf of pence)

https://www.weareplannedparenthood.o...UyL1_-6u12vCQ2

[jp1]

I also agree with IL. That just sounds like a huge amount of work. I'd probably buy a nice fee simple home in palm springs for myself and SO and then spend some time figuring out where the money could do the most good for the most people. But ugggh, honestly I'd rather not have to feel the responsibility of doing something productive with all that money. So much easier to just win a million bucks, retire comfortably and be done with it.

[flowerseverywhere]

It would be a lot of work, but the lives you could change would make up for it.

In a nearby town, there is a lot of poverty and school performance is poor, many way below grade level. What if you could hire a staff that could do things like :
contact the schools in your area and find out what they need. New wing with a reading lab staffed by reading specialists? A band teacher and instruments? School provided uniforms to take the stigma out of being poor. Laundry facilities so kids can get their clothes washed if need be. Who knows what the needs are.
What if you could pay the tuition of medical school students? Or help with their massive loans?
what about a boys and girls club type center, staffed with well paid professionals and a nice facility with basketball courts, soccer fields and all?
A community garden with a paid onsite gardener with a well equipped tool shed.
Scholarships for nursing students, engineering students, and trades like plumbing and electricians.

Obviously what I think is needed and what is actually needed could be very different, so a hired staff to explore and implement some of these things would give many people enormous skills and resources. Way more than giving actual cash.

Even donations to really good causes. Planned parenthood was mentioned. Let’s try to reduce abortions by having lots of clinics where women can get education reliable birth control. Nature conservancy. Numerous environmental and educational groups.

Could it be a hassle? Of course but everything that is worthwhile is a hassle.

[Yppej]

Let’s try to reduce abortions by having lots of clinics where women can get education reliable birth control.

Men can use birth control too. That kind of money could probably bring a pill for men to market.

[catherine]

I agree with the "burden" of owning a billion dollars, but if I were in that position, I'd make sure my family was taken care of in terms of housing, education and health, and then my philanthropic enterprises would probably skew toward local needs.

I've always thought that if I could start a non-profit, I would do something like a "Grandma's purse" type of charity where poor/at risk kids in school would have a way to get small amounts of money to fund back lunch money, new school clothes for start of year, and field trips. Stuff like that. Things that I had a hard time doing for my kids when we were cash-strapped. I never wanted my kids to suffer for it in terms of peer pressure or shame and sometimes that was hard to avoid. My thought was that the kid or the parent could ask "Grandma" for a few bucks for X, Y and Z, and they could get it without a lot of bureaucracy and red tape.

Aside from that I'd fund land restoration and regeneration projects and lobby Washington for food subsidy programs that benefit SMALL farmers and set up an NGO to educate regular people on permaculture.

[flowerseverywhere]

Men can use birth control too. That kind of money could probably bring a pill for men to market.

Absolutely. I thought of women first as many are left to fend for themselves and raise children alone. A common recipe for lifelong struggles and poverty.

[flowerseverywhere]

Aside from that I'd fund land restoration and regeneration projects and lobby Washington for food subsidy programs that benefit SMALL farmers and set up an NGO to educate regular people on permaculture.

nice ideas but I don’t know enough about how subsidies work and who they really benefit. Helping small farmers would be great around me. Lots of farms and the more local you can get your food, the better for the environment. A huge permaculture farm is being constructed near me now. I hope it is truly successful.

[Tybee]

I would happily deal with the burden, haha. After setting up trusts for my family and meeting our needs down to the grandchildren's generation,I would love to spend time as a force of good in the world. I would go for scholarships for all the students I teach and restoration of farms as my mission. And I would spend a lot of time teaching my children and grandchildren about their responsibilities to be stewards and work for good. I'm sure they will have many more ideas than I do right now.

[LDAHL]

I will be honest and admit I would not spent it all on dogoodery. Whatever President Warren allows me to keep will be divided into four portions. One will be used to endow the little nonprofit I run. One will go to my political action committee aimed at promoting my traditional conservative views. One will go to an income trust for me and my lucky descendants.

The last quarter I will spend on selfish pleasures. I would gild my throne of skulls. Perhaps purchase a minor league baseball team. Hardcover books, fast cars and a bunker in the Northwoods where I would withdraw for meditation and day drinking.

I would spend more on myself if I thought I could do it effectively.

[iris lilies]

It would be a lot of work, but the lives you could change would make up for it.

In a nearby town, there is a lot of poverty and school performance is poor, many way below grade level. What if you could hire a staff that could do things like :
contact the schools in your area and find out what they need. New wing with a reading lab staffed by reading specialists? A band teacher and instruments? School provided uniforms to take the stigma out of being poor. Laundry facilities so kids can get their clothes washed if need be. Who knows what the needs are.
What if you could pay the tuition of medical school students? Or help with their massive loans?
what about a boys and girls club type center, staffed with well paid professionals and a nice facility with basketball courts, soccer fields and all?
A community garden with a paid onsite gardener with a well equipped tool shed.
Scholarships for nursing students, engineering students, and trades like plumbing and electricians.

Obviously what I think is needed and what is actually needed could be very different, so a hired staff to explore and implement some of these things would give many people enormous skills and resources. Way more than giving actual cash.

Even donations to really good causes. Planned parenthood was mentioned. Let’s try to reduce abortions by having lots of clinics where women can get education reliable birth control. Nature conservancy. Numerous environmental and educational groups.

Could it be a hassle? Of course but everything that is worthwhile is a hassle.

ok, several points.

First if all, the bold parts of your message are arrogant. If we truly are talking about me spending the rest of my life, all of my life energy, managing a stupid amount of money I didnt ask for, that is placing a burden on me. I get only one life. It is like someone telling me to go back to work for the good of society and hang my personal goals. No.

Now, before I am accused of a paucity of imagination for spending a billion dollars or am further accused of selfishness for not wanting to spend my last few years on earth fussing with stuff I dont care about, let me speak to my main reason for not wanting one billion dollars.

I have responsibility for what I do on earth. Throwing around $1 billion mindlessly would, I guarantee, result in some unintended consequences that I would not like. It might result in MANY unintended consequences. $1 billion is a shit ton of money.

I dont think throwing money at human services necessarily makes things better. For instance from examples above, for dr and nurses schooling is fine, but that doesn't put more docs on the ground—the medical schools control that. So why not start up a medical school with much of the tuition paid to add more drs to the fleet? Maybe, but I can see all kinds of social problems with that.

I wouldn't touch, in another for instance, funding a birth control drug that works for men.I don't know the health consequences.

I realize that great societal changes do not come without bold moves and unintended consequences. I just DO NOT want to be a social engineer.

Turning to a microcosmic social world I know best, bulldog rescue, all the money in the world does not buy dogs good homes. A few million coild be well spent but would overwhelm any single Rescue organization unless structured for payout over the years, and that kind of foundation brings its own problems (Ladies Who Lunch building palaces of Rescue, for instance.)

I will probably have more on this to say later, but I iterate, give me $10 million please, and thank you. i know what to do with that small amount.