10 Tech CEOs Who Are Changing the Face of Philanthropy

In 2010, just before the release of David Fincher’s film The Social Network, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg pledged $100 million to the underfunded Newark, NJ public school system. Many in the media thought that Zuckerberg, who wasn’t portrayed with feverish flattery in the film, was attempting to publicly show people his true self, before most people were introduced to him via a performance in a movie.

At the time, one might’ve been correct to be skeptical of such a grand gesture. Not many companies in Silicon Valley, which were being bought by the millions and billions of dollars, were giving back. In 2005, Google started their charitable arm, Google.org but no other big tech companies jumped into the philanthropic pool with them. Fast-forward nearly a decade, and, as more of the tech giants begin to flex their charitable muscles, their hesitation to give back early on starts to make sense. Firstly, these recent billionaires were, mostly, very young. And money was being transferred faster than it could possibly be minted. And secondly, there was already a tech-bubble burst from previous years.

But if tech companies truly wanted to make the world a better place, eventually they’d have to do more than just open communication and additions to a sharing economy. And while it may seem that it took Zuckerberg and others too long to earmark philanthropic causes, this generation is actually giving back far earlier than previous generations. A lot of that has to do with technology itself; the spread of information has created a larger global consciousness of inequalities and devastation, and thus, the days of waiting to give away money post-retirement are over.

But is philanthropy really different? Are tech CEOs fully engaged with their charity? We take a look at 10 tech CEOs who are changing the face of philanthropy. Instead of just listing the biggest donors, we wanted to highlight different modes of philanthropy among active CEOs. Thus, some of the most ground-breaking donors, such as Quark’s former CEO Tim Gill, an early champion donator to LGBT causes, and those now in-charge of large philanthropic trusts, such as Gordon and Betty Moore and Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner—though extremely commendable for their donating spirit—belong on official top-dollar donor lists.

The individuals that are listed here also represent big donations. But some are challenging other Silicon Valley firms to join them, some are on the board of directors of formidable charities, and some are start-ups that have created a built-in model of giving back from the outset.

It was 19th century steel magnate Andrew Carnegie who once said that a person who dies leaving behind many millions will “pass way unwept, unhonored, and unsung.” And although we’re focusing on active CEOs, we’d be remiss not to mention the Microsoft co-founders for being models for up-and-coming tech philanthropists.

Gates, who has held the title of “World’s Richest” human for 15 of the last 20 years, has given away more than any living person. In 2010, Gates and Warren Buffett announced “The Giving Pledge”—a campaign for billionaires to commit to giving a majority of their billions to philanthropic causes. By May 2014, there were 127 pledges, including current tech CEOs Elon Musk (SpaceX, PayPal), Dustin Moskovitz (Facebook), and the previously mentioned Zuckerberg. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given away $28 billion since its inception. At Carnegie’s death, he’d given away $350 million (adjusted for inflation to $4.7 billion). In addition to massive donations, the Gates have set their foundation to close 20 years after their deaths, meaning that all of their $115 billion will have to have found a donation pledge by that time.

Benioff does not want Silicon Valley to just cozy up to The Giving Pledge. At the CODE Conference in May 2014, Benioff urged the tech community to start giving back “right now.” Benioff can make such a pitch because his 1/1/1 model (1 percent donation of all profit; 1 percent donation of employee time to volunteering; 1 percent of product donated to non-profits) was built-in with the formation of his company.

As an individual philanthropist, Benioff focused most of his attention to giving back to the community of San Francisco. His 10,000 employees give 1 percent of their company time to community service, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but that has already added up to more than 650,000 local hours. Benioff also matched his $100 million donation to a children’s hospital in San Francisco to a children’s hospital in Oakland, a location Benioff labels as a “community of promise” that hasn’t benefited from the tech boom in the same way that San Francisco has.

Iribe is someone who has given back immediately. In July, Iribe’s virtual reality company sold to Facebook for $2 billion. By September, Iribe had already donated $31 million to the University of Maryland to expand their immersive technology capabilities. Iribe told TechCrunch that Zuckerberg’s Newark public school donation was a point of inspiration. His decision began on a golf cart tour of the campus, which caused one of the heads of the university to screech the cart to a halt.

Iribe concluded, why wait until retirement? “What fun is it to make a donation at the end of your career?” Iribe told Vulture Beat. “This way we get to make a bigger impact and participate in the success of [the University]. The name on the building isn’t going to be a deceased person, but someone who is still out there trying to pioneer this space.” Beyond a quick donation, what’s most interesting about Iribe’s charity is that it will keep him at the center of technological advances in his field—at a public university, removed from Silicon Valley.

Jurich has two arms of influence. One is the company she co-founded, Sunrun, which is the second largest solar panel installation company in the U.S.A. The other is a prominent position with The Sierra Club Foundation. Where Sunrun differs from other solar panel installation companies is that it offers a plan that’s applicable for more individuals and businesses to implement right away. By paying for installation themselves, and then selling the power generated back to the owner on a 20-year contract at a price lower than their normal utility bill, Sunrun offers an affordable way to benefit the future.

Similar to how her company looks at the long-term picture, Jurich is also on the Board of Directors for the major non-profit environmental group The Sierra Club. Instead of starting her own environmental institute, Jurich joined the most influential one in a specific arena and is assisting in allocating those funds for the long term.

Despite all of the advances in the tech world, an area in which needs to improve for the future is creating more diversity at the top. Despite comprising 56 percent of the workforce, women currently hold 5.3 percent of CEO positions at Fortune 500 companies. Lefkosky (and his wife Liz, who co-leads their charitable foundation) recently created a $1 million partnership with Google and Motorola to launch 1871 FEMTech this fall. FEMTech’s goal is to fund between 10 and 15 women-owned start-ups per year.

While checking out at a local thrift store, you may have dropped a wooden token into a charity slot for the local animal shelter or for breast cancer research. Well Palmer and Rizk have taken that idea and put it on the web. Their re-commerce shop focuses on high-end fashion re-sales. Fashion Project offers more than a few slots to donate to, and they donate a whopping 55 percent of each sale to the one of your choice.

Since the retailers’ inception in 2012, Fashion Project had raised money for 180 different charities. Palmer and Rizk expanded their model, however, by adding a new feature that allows you to donate to any of the 800,000 IRS-approved non-profits through your shopping bin. Fashion Project also recently partnered with Nordstrom to give customers a reward. For every five approved items donated to Fashion Project, Nordstrom will give you a $40 gift card.

After filling the tech crater created from the exit of IBM from India, Premji re-branded an IT company as Wipro and became the third-richest person in India. He’s also been the most giving, donating $2 billion to education in India. The method in which he donated his billions would go on to greatly influence the rest of Indian philanthropy. After creating multiple education centers to better train teachers (while India has grown exponentially in world wealth, one third of its population is still illiterate) and created a university of higher education. Gates gave his approval. “He is setting a remarkable example for those who have benefited so enormously from India's economic expansion and are looking for ways to give back,” Gates told Time magazine. Premji is the third non-American to sign the Giving Pledge and he’s already halfway to his promise, having already donated 25 percent of his total wealth as of May 2014.

“Incubator” is one of those reclaimed tech buzzwords. In tech language it means providing facilities and resources to a start-up (and if you’ve seen HBO’s Silicon Valley, you know that it could just mean bunk beds and a fridge stocked with Red Bull). In Boulder, Ravilochan has started a unique incubator. The Unreasonable Institute grants 25 annual fellowships to entrepreneurs who are creating tech applications that benefit the world’s poorest. And each year they meet for six weeks in Boulder to receive advice from mentors ranging from the head of interface at Google, Tom Chi, to the CTO of Hewlett-Packard, in order to better design and code their applications. Most importantly, during those six weeks, venture funders also pay a visit. Let the bidding begin.

Which brings us back to the rock star that crashed the tech party a decade prior. Zuckerberg has the benefit of being able to spread his donations across numerous arenas, which is important. Zuckerberg is polarizing in everything that he does, but that’s because he attempts to be as gray as possible, in business and in philanthropy. You can see him tinkering with both: trying to figure out exactly what people like (immigration reform) and find off-putting (TV ads) about his platform and his charity. For example, his first philanthropic foray was announced on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and his $100 million donation to Newark introduced such ideas as merit-based pay for teachers and erasing educational bureaucracies.

Zuckerberg can continue to attempt broad philanthropy because he’s already given the most (his $1 billion donation to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation was the largest single donation of 2013) without having a personal foundation. Zuckerberg knows that he won’t make everyone happy. But isn’t trying to come up with the best outcome (most likes) without upsetting or alienating most of your followers how most people approach using the very platform that he created?