Screwy generosity

My friend Russ sent this story to me. It's a nice story on one level - good to see such generosity of spirit, but it's a ridiculous amount to give to such a small school. Surely she could have spread the wealth around a bit - there's no lack of worthy causes! Weird to hear Buffet talk about how all these people with money have no idea what to do with it. Thank goodness for people like Bill Gates, who are getting organized and doing some good with their fortunes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/education/19gift.html

September 19, 2007
NY Times
Alumna Gives $128 Million to High School
By SAM DILLON

It probably would never have happened if Harvard University had not rejected Warren E. Buffett's business school application in 1950. But a string of events originating with Mr. Buffett's disappointment led yesterday to a Quaker high school receiving a gift that dwarfs some college endowments: $128 million.

It all began when Mr. Buffett, long before he became the celebrated investor, was rejected by Harvard and attended Columbia instead. A business professor there, David L. Dodd, was so impressed that after Mr. Buffett returned home to Nebraska and formed an investment partnership, Professor Dodd invested some of his own money for himself and his daughter.

Mr. Buffett soon acquired a then-obscure textile company named Berkshire Hathaway, and over the years made his professor and many other early investors rich.

Professor Dodd's daughter, Barbara Dodd Anderson, an alumna of the high school, yesterday used much of the fortune from that original investment to endow George School, a private, 500-student institution set on a leafy 240-acre campus in Newtown, Pa.
[. . . ]
Mr. Buffett said Ms. Anderson's gift was one of several vast philanthropic contributions made recently by largely unknown and uncelebrated people who have profited immensely by the appreciation of the stock of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment and insurance holding company.

Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, for instance, received roughly $200 million in the late 1990s from Donald and Mildred Othmer, friends of Mr. Buffett.

"One fellow who talked to me recently said he had done something with $1 billion," Mr. Buffett said. "A lot of people get older and they're not really sure what to do with their money if they've got a lot of it. But I'm sure Barbara was always going to give it to something worthwhile."