> And he gave it away anonymously. While many wealthy philanthropists enlist an army of publicists to trumpet their donations, Feeney went to great lengths to keep his gifts secret.

While it wasn't so important in this case because as a former billionaire I assume he had people at a foundation who's job it was to handle his correspondence, but if you are a regular person looking to make a donation it's often a good idea to keep your name and contact info out of it as much as possible. Charities can be really bad about selling your name.

I'm not a Christian myself and definitely not rich at all, but I do prefer anonymous donations.

1 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

“…A man who gives in charity and hides it, such that his left hand does not know what his right hand gives in charity; and a man who remembered Allah in private and so his eyes shed tears.” (Abu Hurairah & collected in Saheeh al-Bukhari (English trans.) vol.1, p.356, no.629 & Saheeh Muslim (English trans.) vol.2, p.493, no.2248)

As if the whole thing is just a karmic ponzi scheme.

A gift given in secret is seeking the rewards truly worth having: the praise that comes from God. Those who seek that find it, because they loved what was truly worthy of love. But gifts given for others to see are seeking a reward on earth, not heaven—and that’s what they get. Either way, they’re not penalized if, say, the word gets out against their wishes. That’s not the point: God knows and judges the heart and rewards them based on what they were actually seeking.

So seeking rewards is not only categorically OK, it’s actually encouraged, but with the caveat that the seeker set their heart on what is eternally worthy of their love and desire.

The result is a lot of joy, knowing one has brought blessing and joy both to God and to other people.

This passage teaches people not to do things for show which is what many of us do in order to gain esteem and puff up our egos, often with still further gains in mind. This leads to enslavement to our egos, the approval of others, to things, and generally our constant grasping and our desires. Such false charity is pointless; it only leads to spiritual death. Allow your good deeds to remain a secret between you and the omniscient God. Charity is not loss. True charity produces spiritual "reward" by starving the monstrous, tyrannical ego that enslaves us to death. I would go so far as to say that it is even better for the giver than the receiver. The ego is Man's idolatry, and we cannot serve two masters. Thus killing the ego frees us to worship God and to live. The ego blinds us. It is like sitting in a bus at night with the lights on. All you see in the windows is yourself. Shatter the mirror and you will be freed.

This passage presents altruism as a tit-for-tat deal with God. Do good, and you'll get some of that back...later. I promise! It's almost tacky.

God is more loving that any good parent: God IS Love, 1 John 4:8. I trust God's goodness and follow Him, I therefore don't have any reason to go into a tit-for-tat deal with God.

Correction: the passage makes no mention of "heaven."

I don't think you mean to say "tit-for-tat" as that means something else, but I do get the gist: it seems that there's some kind of contractual obligation on the part of God. The logical argument being: if you do [GIVE], then He does [REWARD]. This is a subtle argument, but flawed for a number of reasons (and why texts should never be taken out of context).

First, God isn't beholden to anyone. He does as He pleases, and the only "laws" He is bound by is His own nature (good, omniscient, eternal, etc.). There's many examples where Pharisees try to play these logical gotcha games with Christ, and they're always repudiated.

Secondly, the point of the passage itself is twofold: (1) avoid religious hypocrisy, and (2) avoid materialistic vainglory. Reading into the text deeper than that, brings us to my last point...

Finally, given that Christianity is a theist moral system, it makes sense that the ultimate arbiter of "goodness" is God -- in my opinion, that's why Chist brings up the "reward" -- which, for all intents and purposes, might just be God's approval (who knows what that entails).

Only by an extremely shallow reading.

"He who gives charity to the poor without knowing to who, and the poor knows not from who was taken, this is a true Mitzva"

The 2nd ranked charity level. [pls excuse my poor translation]

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/256321/jewish...

The government should at least take away the tax deductibility of non anonymous donations.

But there are other reasons to make a public show of philanthropy: to encourage others to give, to be a part of giving campaigns, to draw attention to an issue you consider important, to tell a personal story for why something matters for you, and otherwise to direct that attention towards the cause rather than yourself.

It is very similar in fact to tithing instead of the practice of having your name called out in service in front of everyone so you can later trade on that donation for social standing.

On the other hand, a culture of anonymous donations (and less wealth signaling) could indicate a culture where everyone, no matter how rich or poor, is expected to do their part to help others.

It depends a lot on what people's takeaways are from these acts, which are shaped by cultural expectations and norms. One should consider the cultural externalities of donations in addition to purely the dollar amounts.

Giving anonymously can be a way for the giver to prove to themselves what kind of person they are.

I disagree. This is an attempt to buy legacy and erase their past. It benefits only those who make the donations, and whatever causes happen to pique their particular interests. It also creates yet another organization of people dependent upon the good will and whim of a single supporter.

> to encourage others to give

I would presume the tax breaks are enough.

> and otherwise to direct that attention towards the cause rather than yourself.

Large portions of non-profit budgets are specifically spent on awareness and on generating future donations. There is no need to slap your last name on the side of a building for this purpose.

I don't feel bad that people buy a legacy. I believe that a legacy of being a massive philanthropist is a legacy worth having.

I don't feel bad that they "erase their past", because all people can still be judged by the totality of their actions.

The recognition does benefit the people that make the donations. Doesn't seem to be a problem to me.

Charitable organizations are dependent upon the whim of their donors regardless of whether the donors get any recognition.

The fraction of non-profit budgets that are spent on awareness seems to be a tangential point that I do not understand.

Currently we incentivize private individual donations, and that lets a lot of things happen quickly and without the requirement of soliciting the permission of a bottlenecked council for anything to happen.

If you want to use your money to support some private crusade that’s fine, but why must we support anything anyone thinks as a worthy cause? It’s in effect a blank check without meaningful oversight. Their are for example homeopathy charities whose donations are tax deductible.

- Universal healthcare - Free education - Funding homeless assistance programs - Employment insurance - UBI

(granted these last 2 are pretty much just redistributing money)

The question is whether you want the few billionaires to decide where to spend the money, or everyone (that is, people who haven't been disenfranchised).

AND THEN arguably given the polarization of the US today, I can understand that anyone feels frisky in raising the taxes to found the other side's ideas (being republicans not wanting to fund healthcare or democrats not wanting to fund a wall)

In fact if the government recognized honest taxpayers as if they were forward thinking "philanthropic donors" (replete with award dinners for the million dollar donors) - perhaps there'd be more excitement for April 15th - and such people would not be so quick to figure out ways to avoid paying taxes.

Fun thought video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTAE5m3ZO2E

If it lowers the amount people donate, then it proves my point...that people were intending to get something in return, hence not a donation.

I've heard the misconception that one could use a deduction to bump yourself into a lower tax rate on your entire income, and therefore come out ahead, but that's not how U.S. federal income tax rates work.

"Loopholes" are often in the eye of the beholder.

I don't care about Benioff's need for legacy. I care about reducing corruption, which non anonymous tax deductible donations enable.

I can't even say how a bit of fame for people giving large sums is harmful. And whatever people object to, I doubt it's anywhere close to the significance of the positive effects of giving.

The fact that he's effectively been doxxed on the donations does mean it's no longer anonymous, yes.

https://youtu.be/ZAKrb9b4s28?t=100

Feeney seems like an awesome guy but sadly in 100 years nobody will know his name!

Yes, absolutely. And if a certain General Hospital in San Francisco were not named after the tackiest of billionaires then maybe it could honor, I dunno, Hugh Toland?

Instead of dedicating most of its "about us" page to shining a youngish oligarch's already controversial reputation?

https://zuckerbergsanfranciscogeneral.org/about-us/our-histo...

I was wrong.

Basically, the uber rich want to be seen as something more than just money. Guys like Anschutz and whatnot. There seems to be a pattern where they get a new shiny glass and steel building with a bunch of sick kids in it, and then they put the wife's name, an ampersand, his name, and the last name in big 3-D letters on the side. Likely it's a tax writeoff.

Also, not to be too cynical, but it's not a bad thing overall. The money could be sitting in the Caymans afterall.

You can take $1 and pay the taxes on it and end up with $0.60. Or you can give away a dollar and not have to pay $0.40 in taxes. But you still gave away a dollar, so you're sixty cents in the hole.

That doesn't make any sense. They pay for that art, and the money goes to the people that owned the art previously. Either they stick it into an account in the Caymans, or a regular/investment account, or they just have it available, but purchasing assets with it is not money hidden away as an art investment.

A significant amount of wealth may be in assets, but that's the same for most people that's aren't poor (i.e. that own a house). The money used to purchase those assets is still circulating though.

https://www.businessinsider.com/tax-havens-for-millionaires-...

https://longreads.com/2018/05/29/tax-free-storage-wars/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Freeport

[0] Footnote in case it is necessary: antisemitism must be stamped out wherever it is found.

To be clear, there were no intentional dog-whistles in my post. I thought I was saying something strongly positive, about a phenomenon which I've observed and have great admiration for.

However, your response and the thread that followed, reveals some things I clearly didn't consider. There is surely a lot of anti-semitism out there, and that my comment was mistaken for it, I think shows how pervasive it must be. And it's important, as has been said, to call it out wherever it appears. And I guess that means looking for even tiny hints of double meanings. Which, logically, includes meanings that someone may not be cognizant of when speaking with one meaning in mind. I honestly thought I was being "cute" with the deli thing.

I'm astonished and saddened to see a well-intentioned comment identified as just the opposite. I didn't mean to play into any negative stereotypes about money -- I didn't say anything about being obsessed with money, and if I got near it at all, I was talking about being recognized for _doing good things_ (with money), and how this cultural pattern does that. I think that's pretty clearly positive! (The whole point of the article, after all, was that more people with money should be committed to doing good things with it. Money's a pretty unavoidable aspect here.) But clearly my comment exists in a world where a lot of terrible things also exist, and I guess I can see how it could be mistaken for a vague hint towards one of those terrible things.

Especially on the internet, where tone and nuance are notoriously tricky.

So I'm honestly looking for input. Is there a better way to say what I was trying to say?

Regardless, I'm sorry that you saw something negative in what I said. I'm even more sorry that anti-semitism is so insidious that you had reason to look for negative interpretations in the first place. That sucks.

I'm not familiar with what the other guy is describing, nor do I have any opinion on this particular topic. I'm just saying that "people of X culture tend to do Y thing more than the average person" is not in itself a hateful or disrespectful comment.

Recognizing what’s important to you and knowing that you have it is what’s actually valuable.

I think it's a cultural thing. In some countries it would be considered very poor taste for someone to pay to get their name on a building. If it's an academic building, I think it makes more sense to name it after someone who contributed to the field. Or it could simply be the "CS building".

Have you seen the halls of the US univerisites?

I'm 99.9999999% certain that no one cares about their name when they're dead.

Given how much weight most folks put in defining themselves through other people...

I guess Jerry Jones could have named his stadium "Dallas Cowboys Football Stadium" and that would have certainly told you everything you need to know. But instead he called it AT&T stadium and pockets $400 million. Both Jones and AT&T are happy. Same principle applies to colleges and hospitals.

[0]https://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/maps_and_directions/par...

I would much rather someone have something named for them who donated their own wealth than a political party go around stamping their members names everywhere.

I would much rather have the naming of government buildings to be never named for any politician.

[0]https://zuckerbergsanfranciscogeneral.org/

If there actually two general hospitals, do what Toronto East General Hospital did, subdivide by location.

Trump Tower, Trump Airlines. Trump Taj Mahal

Oh wait.. NVM

Basic numbers and letters. Building 4, Building C, Building 97, Building Z, etc.

Not when it's on a submarine ;)

Edit: I'm more than fine with it because it makes Zuckerberg seem less special.

But sure, if you put out a call for solicitiations when you announced you were giving it all away, you probably also need a big announcement when you're done or you'll be dealing with development officers all day every day.