Including the Young and the Rich
White House Hosts ‘Next Generation’ Young and Rich
By JAMIE JOHNSONAPRIL 18, 2014
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Ian Simmons and Liesel Pritzker Simmons, at left, supporters of impact investing, at the next-generation conference at the White House last month. CreditPerry Bindelglass
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/fashion/white-house-hosts-next-generation-young-and-rich.html?_r=1
White House Hosts ‘Next Generation’ Young and Rich
By JAMIE JOHNSONAPRIL 18, 2014
Photo
Ian Simmons and Liesel Pritzker Simmons, at left, supporters of impact investing, at the next-generation conference at the White House last month. CreditPerry Bindelglass
Continue reading the main storyShare This Page
- Nexus, a youth organization based in Washington that seeks to “catalyze” the next generation of billionaire philanthropists and other stakeholders.
Mr. Kalil moved nimbly among the affluent participants and through the ornate halls of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where the summit was held. “A lot of this is not just, you know, collaborations between the administration and philanthropists,” he said, “but philanthropists finding each other, finding other philanthropists with shared interests.”
(Disclosure: Although the event was closed to the media, I was invited by the founders of Nexus, Jonah Wittkamper and Rachel Cohen Gerrol, to report on the conference as a member of the family that started the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company.)
Policy experts and donors recognize that there’s no better time than now to empower young philanthropists. Professionals in the field, citing anAccenture report from 2012, estimate that more than $30 trillion in wealth will pass from baby boomers to younger generations by around 2050. At the same time, the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy (no relation to this reporter) and the nonprofit consulting group 21/64 have concluded in a recent study on philanthropic giving that heirs are becoming involved in family foundations at an earlier age — specifically in their 20s and 30s — and imprinting them with the social values of their generation.
A case in point is Zac Russell, an eloquent 26-year-old whose grandfather made a fortune with the asset management firm Russell Investments and who officially joined the board of the Russell Family Foundation last year. While not an ardent supporter of the Obama administration, he decided to attend the conference to consult, he said, with White House experts onclimate change and to discuss grass-roots efforts to improve water quality in Puget Sound, where the foundation is based.
“It’s not just seen as some old guy writing checks anymore,” Mr. Russell said. “It’s young people who want to solve real problems.”
Sporting scraggy Brooklyn-style facial hair and a loosely fitting suit without a necktie that contrasted with the stately White House surroundings, Mr. Russell spoke with an air of cynicism. “Their head of public affairs contacted me and said, ‘Let’s talk,’ and so we’ll talk,” he said.
The conference, which lasted all day and included breaks for lunch and hallway hobnobbing, covered a broad range of topics including “Climate Change,” “Millennial Healthcare” and “Revitalizing Cities.”
One topic that seemed to generate intense interest among the wealthy heirs was impact investing, which refers to a socially conscious form of investing that seeks to generate both a social benefit and a meaningful financial return.
A morning breakout session on the subject was led by Jonathan Greenblatt, a former entrepreneur from the impact-investing world who now holds the lengthy title of special assistant to the president and director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation in the Domestic Policy Council. Held in a grand two-story room with mosaic floors and classical marble-fitted walls, it resembled an Ivy League honors seminar, with young investors packed around a table as Mr. Greenblatt instructed them to go out into the world not only to make money, but to do good.
It was rhetoric that Liesel Pritzker Simmons, 30, could appreciate. A strong believer in impact investing, Ms. Simmons received a fortune thatForbes magazine estimates at about $500 million, through a lawsuit against her father, Robert Pritzker, and other members of the family after she was left out of the Pritzker inheritance. In 2011, she married Ian Simmons, whose forebears were founders of the Montgomery Ward department store chain, and together they have become a recognizable power couple in philanthropic circles.
“We want 100 percent of our assets to be value aligned or impact invested,” Ms. Simmons said. She and her husband recently formed the Blue Haven Initiative, a public-spirited investment office and philanthropic organization. The gravitas she commands as a boldface name, even among this silk-stocking crowd, meant that people wanted her attention as she made her rounds at the conference.
“I was a little worried they were going to get a bunch of rich kids in the room and fund-raise for the Democratic Party,” Ms. Simmons said. “But they didn’t.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/fashion/white-house-hosts-next-generation-young-and-rich.html?_r=1
...bill gates wants to talk about global warming or birth rates and everyone takes him serious..not because he is an expert on population or climate but because he has the most money...
, its quite simple in a capitalist society true power is WEALTH... so whoever has a majority of that wealth or holds the means of its creation holds all the power.
The question you're trying to ask: "what forms of modern government aren't open to complete submission by the financial elite?" I'd say islamic or judaic theocracies? .. but where the fukk do you live? what form of government is the basis for the worlds domineering superpower? 
