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| Profile |
Half Measures
Joanna L. Krotz
03/01/2007
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Anne and Christopher Ellinger spend a great deal of time on the telephone
these days. The couple call their philanthropically inclined acquaintances, all
of them already overcommitted people, to ask them to consider carving out some
of their precious time to share their stories with other potential
philanthropists. They call the development directors at nonprofit organizations
to ask if they can suggest philanthropists who might consider giving a great
deal more money than they already do. They have even called state lottery boards
to ask about winners who have given some of their prizes to charity. “They said
they don’t track that,” Christopher says.
 The Ellingers make all these calls
to recruit affluent people for their fledgling organization, the 50% League. To
join, individuals must commit to giving away half of their net worth, or at
least half of their income, for three consecutive years. But there is also a
tier of “exploring” members who have not yet stipulated this level of
generosity. Hence the need for very generous philanthropists to join their
organization and spread the message that giving away a large portion of one’s
assets will not lead to financial devastation.
As of last December, the
league had 71 full-fledged members. The Ellingers also require their members to
publicize their personal stories, anonymously if they prefer. “The main value is
the chance to inspire other givers,” Anne says. Their stories will be posted on
a website that the Ellingers are set to launch.
Carol Newell, who donated
part of her $25 million family inheritance from Newell Rubbermaid to provide
seed capital for small businesses in British Columbia, will detail the story of
her philanthropic work. The site will also feature one the first people to join
the 50% League, Ruth Ann Harnisch, a former award-winning Nashville journalist
and TV news anchor who married a prosperous investment banker. “I got my money
the two old-fashioned ways,” Harnisch says. “I earned it, and I married it.” She
contributed more than $1 million to the Ellingers’ previous organization, More
Than Money (MTM), an educational nonprofit aimed at helping people strike a
balance between their personal values and their wealth. Harnisch says that MTM
helped dispel stereotypical ideas she had about people with money, despite the
fact that she had ample amounts of it herself. “MTM taught me that wealthy
people are individuals—surprise!—just like human beings with lesser amounts.”
Other 50% League members include a Seattle resident who decided to donate half
of his real estate broker commissions for three years, and a lawyer who helped
win a class-action settlement, then gave away a large portion of his earnings.
The Ellingers, both 50, describe their philanthropic gospel in decidedly
touchy-feely terms; they talk about being “active partners in social change.” In
person, however, they are an intellectual couple who, after 25 years together
pondering money and its impact, tend to finish each other’s sentences. They
inherited their money from Christopher’s grandparents while still in their 20s.
It was an unexpected situation because he had grown up in a family where money
was a taboo subject. Through their various experiences, they eventually learned
not only the complexities of managing wealth, but also the intricacies of giving
money away.
| The Ellingers like to tell people that they do not have to amass the wealth of Bill Gates or George Soros before they give substantial donations. |
Ironically, despite support from individuals like Harnisch,
MTM succumbed to funding woes in June 2006 and transferred most of its remaining
assets to the Marpa Center for Business and Economics at Naropa University in
Boulder, Colo., to establish a new Money and Values program. The Ellingers
believe MTM, preoccupied with an identity crisis, became too dependent on a $3
million capacity-building fund that came from them and some 20 other donors. “It
was never meant as an ongoing endowment,” Christopher says. “We used it to grow
too fast, building the staff and programs instead of building up the largesse.”
They left MTM—amicably, they say—in 2003, burned out by building the
organization, and took a year away from this type of work.In 2004, the
couple launched another nonprofit, the Zing Foundation, not a grant-making body
but a 501(c)(3) charity through which they raise funds to build on some of the
ideas that they think MTM overlooked, including support for arts that make a
social impact and the concept of their 50% League.
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