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In May 2025, Bill Gates made headlines with an announcement: he will give away nearly his entire fortune within the next 20 years. He had always planned to “spend down” the endowment of the Gates Foundation, but the timeline was different, originally scheduled to sunset a few decades after his (and Melinda’s) deaths. As he writes in his blog, Gates Notes:
“People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them. There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people. That is why I have decided to give my money back to society much faster than I had originally planned. I will give away virtually all my wealth through the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years to the cause of saving and improving lives around the world. And on December 31, 2045, the foundation will close its doors permanently” (emphasis in the original).
Gates’s decision to direct the flow of virtually all his wealth outward, to be redistributed “around the world,” contrasts sharply with the giving philosophy embraced by the wealthy Chinese philanthropists-in-training whom I encountered during my research. The Chinese elites who enrolled in an exclusive (and expensive!) course with an organization I call the “World-Class Philanthropy Institute” (WPI) were, instead, most taken with the giving philosophy espoused by the Rockefeller Family—an approach that foregrounds the notion of “legacy.”
In 2018–2019, I conducted participant-observation inside the Beijing offices of WPI, learning from my colleagues who were designing and running courses to teach wealthy Chinese individuals how to be “philanthropists” (cishanjia, 慈善家). In the spring of 2019, I also got the opportunity to travel to Boston, New York, and Suzhou as an observing participant in three five-day immersive courses, part of WPI’s globe-trotting “Elite Philanthropy Program.” The second course module, taking place in New York, was focused specifically on this notion of “legacy,” translated into Mandarin as chuancheng (传承).
An excerpt from my fieldnotes describes the scene:
Inside the conference center, broad tables in a large “U” had chairs arranged around the periphery. At the front of the room was a double projector screen displaying one slide in English, and another which had been translated into Chinese. A panel of professional family philanthropy advisors and members of wealthy American families were seated up front, between the screens. We, the Elite Philanthropy Program participants, took our seats around the periphery, along with two simultaneous interpreters. Gooseneck microphones had been placed at regular intervals, and everyone in the room was wearing headsets tuned-in to channel 1 for Mandarin Chinese, or 2 for English. When the session started, the panelists went over the basics of family philanthropy, and spoke about the components of the Rockefeller model. All of them were white Americans, teaching in English about “legacy,” while the interpreters skillfully translated their words such that Chinese participants heard about “chuancheng” through their headsets.
According to the National Philanthropic Trust, family philanthropy “is simply giving as a family.” This broad category includes a number of different “structures of giving,” such as creating a “charitable trust,” setting up a “donor advised fund” (DAF) at an existing grant-making organization, or establishing a private family foundation. The latter option requires the biggest lift, but it can also make the biggest splash. I learned, during this course, that there are also two different approaches within the category of family foundation.
The most traditional approach in American-style philanthropy, which dates back to the Gilded Age, is to establish the endowment of a foundation (i.e., the source of all the funds used for charitable giving) to exist “in perpetuity.” This means, counterintuitively, that the money set aside for a philanthropic purpose is not given away. It is actually invested in the market. The surplus value generated from these investments is what becomes available for use in grantmaking or making donations. Say a family foundation is established with an endowment of $1 million, which is invested, returning approximately 5%, annually. That means $50,000 can be disbursed in grants each year. Thus, in theory, the foundation established to exist “in perpetuity” can keep going forever because it will never be used up.
In September 2025, the Chronicle of Philanthropy published an op-ed by redistributive philanthropist Katherine Hayes, which was pejoratively titled “I Said No to Wealth Hoarding and Left My Family Foundation Behind.” In the piece, Hayes proclaims: “I’m a fifth-generation inheritor of wealth who was raised in a culture that valued both generosity and resource hoarding…. I’ve come to believe that family foundations obstruct the flow of money to people in need. The vast sums of cash they and other private foundations stockpile should embarrass anyone who claims to be a philanthropist or works in the sector.”
The alternative to “in perpetuity” has been most loudly championed by Bill Gates. It is to “spend down” the endowment, making gifts from that pot of money which would otherwise be used, exclusively, to generate dividends. Hayes writes that she has also chosen this course of action: “believing that I don’t have the right to control assets meant to help others — I spent down my fund within the larger family foundation in 2023.”
This choice has been dubbed “the philanthropist’s dilemma”: Will the wealth of my foundation flow out more freely in gifts, and fade away? Or will it flow down across generations of descendants who will share a smaller amount of that wealth at a time, but for the foreseeable future?
Well, this very question was posed to the “Elite Philanthropy Program” participants. As recorded in my fieldnotes:
At the end of the lecture, just before a break for a buffet lunch of tacos in the next room, the facilitator asked for a show of hands indicating who amongst us thought they would choose to “spend down” the endowment of a family foundation, should we establish one. I was surprised to see that no one moved a muscle. Even allowing time for the interpreters to relay the question into my classmates’ ears, it became clear no one wanted to raise their hand. Next, she asked who would like to set up a foundation that would exist “in perpetuity.” The hand of every participant immediately shot up into the air, and a few smiles and nods were exchanged. These budding Chinese philanthropists thus unanimously expressed an intention to establish private foundations that would tie the making of charitable donations to the strengthening of a new family legacy, the consolidation of their wealth for the future, and the reproduction of their elite social and economic status in future generations.
Notably, as I have written elsewhere, the concepts of “legacy” and “in perpetuity” in English both correlate with the Mandarin chuancheng, though chuancheng is most often used as a verb. It is the act of perpetuating (or being perpetuated). Chuancheng articulates the unbroken flow of any type of inheritance—wealth, culture, genes, knowledge, family name, and so on, from the past to the future. And these nascent philanthropists in the conference room with me fervently desired to facilitate jiazu chuancheng (家族传承)—perpetuation of the family lineage.
To be clear, setting up a foundation to be passed down generation upon generation is not equivalent to giving money to one’s descendants. Those who inherit the foundation cannot use the money for themselves—the endowment has been allocated for charitable purposes—but they will continue to benefit from the social and cultural capital that comes with philanthropic giving. As the instructors teaching Chinese philanthropists about the so-called “Rockefeller secret to a lasting family legacy” intimated, multigenerational family philanthropy necessitates (and ensures) that the “culture of philanthropy” (translated as cishan wenhua, 慈善文化) will be passed down to future generations. One of the emerging philanthropists I encountered did establish a family foundation for his two children (and beyond). Tellingly, he described the ability to perpetuate this tradition of charitable giving as “the greatest inheritance” he could leave them. Participating in the act of giving will almost certainly shore up the social standing of his offspring, and perhaps inoculate them against the spoiled, spendthrift behavior that has come to be seen as characteristic of China’s fu’erdai (富二代), or “wealthy second generation.”
In contrast, when asked about what he will leave his own three children, Gates has said: “It’s not a dynasty, you know. I’m not asking them to run Microsoft. I wanna give them the chance to have their own earnings and success.” He says he has explained to his kids that “the highest calling for these resources is to go back to the neediest through the foundation.” Because the Gates Foundation will now be spending down and closing in 2045, the Gates children won’t have the opportunity to help direct grants throughout their lives, unless they make and give away their own fortunes.
Gates’s spend-down approach is ostensibly prioritizing the direct effects of his philanthropic giving. As he says in his announcement, “I don’t make any decisions about my money without considering the impact.” Though he does not explicitly espouse the philosophy of effective altruism, he has always placed top priority on both measuring and maximizing the impact of his humanitarian efforts.
However, anthropological scholarship on “the gift” has long observed that the practice of giving fulfills social functions that really have nothing (or very little) to do with the direct “impact” of a gift. Instead, we can look at the patterns of giving over time—how material wealth flows through a community (or accumulates, stagnant), and how these patterns of giving carve out networks of relationships and define aspects of social identity such as gender, age-group, status, et cetera.
In fact, Gates’s display of massive generosity, apparently a “free gift” to the rest of the world, resembles Franz Boas’s description of the potlatch in some ways. In Gates’ words: “As Microsoft turns 50 years old, it feels right that I celebrate the milestone by committing to give away the resources I earned through the company.” But, as Mary Douglas suggested in her foreword to Marcel Mauss’s The Gift, perhaps there are “no free gifts.” It is not the case that Gates gets nothing in return for his philanthropy. By directing the flow of his wealth outward in a grand gesture such as this, his personal status and reputation are enhanced.
Progenitor of Chinese anthropology Fei Xiaotong proposed a fundamental difference between “Western” and Chinese social structure that might serve as one explanation for the preference I observed for “perpetuity” over “spend-down.” He suggested that, in Western society, individuals are organized into social groups like individual pieces of straw tied into bundles. He compared the structure of Chinese social relationships, on the other hand, to concentric ripples that flow out from the center, as when a stone is tossed into a lake. Rather than discrete individuals tied together, Fei suggested Chinese persons have a “differential mode of association,” with a different set of privileges and obligations for each sphere of relationship: household, family lineage, state, nation, et cetera.
From this perspective, it’s possible to view spend-down philanthropy as more “self-oriented,” highlighting the importance of the individual—the one giving—and signaling membership in a broader (perhaps worldwide) community composed of other individuals. Choosing to establish a foundation “in perpetuity,” on the other hand, orients giving around the family lineage as the primary social unit.
Of course, not every wealthy person in China or in the West has the same priorities or approach. For example, the first Chinese mogul to sign the Gates-Buffett Giving Pledge in 2010 (though his name has since been removed from the list of signatories) is the notorious Chen Guangbiao. Chen has made spectacular displays of giving, including hyper-visible involvement in relief efforts for victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake (during which he handed out “wads of cash”), and “an extravagant banquet for 250 homeless people in New York.” Meanwhile, the American Rockefeller family has become the paradigmatic example of a tradition of big philanthropy that has been passed down seven generations and counting.
Fundamentally, I am not writing to promote or critique any particular approach in how the wealthy direct the flow of their philanthropy. Rather than asking whether any approach is “good” or “bad,” or even considering the “pros” and “cons” of each approach, we might ask what these choices say about our relationships with each other. What is the nature of our obligations to other people? Which people? How might the decision to “spend down” or establish a foundation “in perpetuity” reflect a more individual versus a family-oriented membership in the broader social fabric?