Philanthropy
Kaiser is listed third on BusinessWeek's 2008 list of the top 50 American philanthropists, behind Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates. Among his prominent causes is fighting childhood poverty through the George Kaiser Family Foundation; he is also a major benefactor to the Jewish community in Oklahoma, which numbers about 5,000 people. He has been notably active in the promotion of early childhood education. Kaiser's family foundation is also the largest contributor to the Tulsa Community Foundation, which Kaiser established in 1998 because of his perception that that Tulsa's historical dependence on unorganized private giving from its wealthy families was no longer effective. Beginning with gifts from seventeen local philanthropists, by 2006 this foundation had grown to become the largest community foundation in the United States, and now has approximately four billion dollars in assets.
Kaiser's family foundation funded the National Energy Policy Institute, a non-profit energy policy organization located at the University of Tulsa whose president since its inception is former Alaska governor Tony Knowles, and whose director since January 2010 is former U.S. Representative Brad Carson. In January 2009, Kaiser drew attention after he told a committee of the Oklahoma House of Representatives that the state should eliminate or reduce tax incentives for the oil and gas industry, and instead use the money for health care or education programs or for tax cuts for other taxpayers.
Kaiser's family foundation was a large investor in the now-defunct Solyndra Corporation.
Kaiser is among those who have made The Giving Pledge, a commitment to give away half of his wealth for charitable purposes.
Read more about this topic: George Kaiser
Famous quotes containing the word philanthropy:
“Almost every man we meet requires some civility,—requires to be humored; he has some fame, some talent, some whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“... the hey-day of a woman’s life is on the shady side of fifty, when the vital forces heretofore expended in other ways are garnered in the brain, when their thoughts and sentiments flow out in broader channels, when philanthropy takes the place of family selfishness, and when from the depths of poverty and suffering the wail of humanity grows as pathetic to their ears as once was the cry of their own children.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“I shall not be forward to think him mistaken in his method who quickest succeeds to liberate the slave. I speak for the slave when I say that I prefer the philanthropy of Captain Brown to that philanthropy which neither shoots me nor liberates me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)