Mark Zuckerberg gave $100 million to schools in Newark:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... 6hQUjkIb1A
Bill Gates is giving away pretty much his entire fortune:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx
Back at the end of the 19th century when Carnegie gave away something like $350 million (which in purchasing power and adjusted for inflation is a lot more than it sounds) there were accusations of the rich trying to "buy their way into heaven".
The rich have always given to the poor, charity is always a good thing. It's practically a rule in Western society that you can be as mean, grasping and conniving as you like making your fortune but if you give it away you can be redeemed. I blame the Christians for that. Charities support whole sections of society like cancer sufferers and the mentally disabled, David Cameron even wants their work to expand to cover the fact the state isn't going to always be able to afford caring for everyone someday soon.
There are thousands of charities in the UK, some have been around for a hundred years or more. Let's put aside the work these charities have done to tide over problems in society, have they actually changed anything? The Salvation Army do roughly the same job they did in 1865 when they were set up, as do many other organisations. Take UNICEF UK for example. Raised £65 million last year, £50 million of which went to active causes ( http://www.unicef.org.uk/pages.asp?page=49). Red Nose Day had raised £80 million 4 months after it finished (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Relief#2009_Event), even the doughty Salvation Army raised a respectable £29 million (http://www.charitiesdirect.com/charitie ... 00566.html). Year after year after year, for 150 years the Salvation Army has had little old ladies out in the streets banging their little pots. What's £29 million a year for 150 years? Just shy of 4.4 billion. Some years might have been better than others though and it probably took a while to get off the ground so lets call it £4 billion. That's just in the UK. Worldwide they have operating costs of £2.6 billion a year alone.
Anyway this £4 billion is a bit spurious but we'll run with it for now. It's a small sum compared to the figures bandied around each day by the government, but it's enough to give every single person in the UK £65 today. Each year in the UK alone around £10 billion is given by private individuals to charity (http://www.cafonline.org/pdf/UK_Giving_2009.pdf). That's two and a half times what the poor old SA has earned in its entire lifetime, and even that figure is absolutely dwarfed by the figures from the US. $600 billion given to charity in 2008 and 2009 (http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/News/ ... 102009.pdf). That's almost the entire UK budget for a year. You could happily run the entire NHS, hospitals, staff, drugs off $600 for 3 years and have money left over.
I guess what I'm getting at is that if worldwide figures were available they'd show charity each year is probably in excess of $trillion at least. That's just from private individuals. That's a lot of money, and it doesn't seem to have solved anything. Essentially we are still living in a world that requires charity on top of taxation each year and it's achieved...nothing? Is Africa still mostly backward? Yes. Are there still unassailable social problems in most Western societies such as drug addiction, homelessness and domestic abuse? Yes. Children still beaten and raped? Yes. Despite the philanthropy of the state combined with individual charities and huge sums each year, we are still mostly doing what Carnegie was doing, and that is throwing money at problems and then sitting comfortably back until next year. At least Carnegie put his money into institutions that survive today rather than a fluid series of initiatives and projects that diffuse and thereby reduce the impact of the large sums of money put into them. Fair enough we may spend more globally on defense, but the serious money for guns usually trades hands between rich countries anyway, and isn't anything like the constant stream of money that's been poured into Africa and even India in the last 60 years. Money that has usually ended up going back the way it came into Swiss bank accounts and BMW showrooms anyway.
Each year hundreds of heads are shaved, thousands of pub crawls and raffles organised and tens of thousands of marathons run "for charity". Charity that seemingly changes very little, is unaccountable in how it spends its money (the £803,000 given by Comic Relief to Twin, a charity that seems to campaign against free trade or the dear old SA's trouble with misappropriating funds in India) and crucially doesn't pay tax or have to spend its money in one place. If all the charity given in the world was put in the a few places that were the right places massive wastage and replication could be avoided and a lot more done. Targeted charity might stand a chance if it invested in one country in Africa rather than ten. China right now is doing more with business deals and development contracts that could almost be called "colonial" than Western charity has been able to do for 50 years.
That's one answer. It won't work though. There is too much tied up in there being a charity for this and that, answering each and every problem. There are charities for the care of the animals of abused families - that's right - the pets of victims of domestic abuse (http://www.pawsforkids.org.uk/) and charities that save street prostitutes in Bangladesh. Worthy causes of course (well maybe not so much the former). But can any of it be solved or will Paws for Kids be celebrating it's 150th in 2160? Here's my answer. Next time someone asks me for money "for charity" and I consider it I'm going to say "no" and put that money towards the Space Elevator instead. Why? Because charity didn't help anyone during the Industrial Revolution, why are we so certain it helps now?
EDITED amended Zuckerberg's name 2203 27/10/10