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Like most readers of this book, you probably have an idea of what a “philanthropist” looks like. You might assume philanthropists are wealthy older people who attend fancy galas. They give money and serve on boards, rarely rolling up their sleeves and pitching in to help when and where it's needed most. And while it's nice that they give away money, it mostly goes to causes that matter to wealthy older people like them. Their giving doesn't really make a difference to the problems you see every day in your community or the issues you are passionate about. Unless you visit a museum on your fifth‐grader's field trip or find yourself in a fancy wing of a big hospital, how philanthropists give doesn't really affect your daily life that much.

But this portrait of a philanthropist is way off, especially in terms of describing the next gen donors we will introduce you to in this book.

Major donors affect your life more than you might know – maybe even more than you might find comfortable.

Ever been cared for by a nurse? Received a scholarship? Used a library? Consumed pasteurized milk? Then you've benefited directly from the decisions by major funders to support causes such as modern medical training, the arts, and public health. If you get your news from National Public Radio or allow Sesame Street to entertain and educate your preschooler, or if you're a woman who's had a Pap smear test, then your life is affected in a direct way by the actions of major donors. All of those innovations were driven primarily by philanthropic – rather than market or government – investments.

Many good things we take for granted are due in large part to wealthy donors giving big donations – things like community centers and local parks; beautiful churches, synagogues, and mosques; a world‐class higher education system; and even the ideas for a 911 emergency system and white lines on the sides of highways. The same can be said for the eradication of many bad things we no longer have to worry about (at least in the United States), like sewage in the streets, children working in factories, and diseases like polio and yellow fever.

Philanthropists were primary funders behind the development of modern mental health treatment, hospice care, and autism treatments. They helped create many of our institutions serving widows, orphans, and people with disabilities. Medical breakthroughs such as the use of insulin to treat diabetes and antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV were made possible by donors with singular dedications to those issues. And of course, outside the United States, philanthropic giving by large donors, from the Rockefellers to the Gateses, has literally saved millions of lives, whether through the eradication of hookworm, the fight against tuberculosis, or the availability of antimalarial bed nets.

But as the history of international giving shows, how – and how much – major donors affect our lives can sometimes be controversial. While most of us are happy that big donors in the past were behind nascent social movements such as the abolition of slavery, suffrage, and civil rights, other movements funded by philanthropists divide us just as they divide the donors themselves. For instance, major donors are backing both sides of the marriage equality and the charter school debates, both the prochoice and prolife movements, and both the founding of the state of Israel and the Palestinian desire for a homeland.1

Still think your life isn't fundamentally different because of the choices that major donors make?

While they have a complicated and sometimes disputed legacy, the impact of philanthropic giants like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford on American life is undeniable. They created enduring institutions like hospitals, universities, museums, libraries, and the modern philanthropic foundation. Philanthropy today is based largely on the ideas and innovations of these corporate lions. They set the norms and shaped our collective image for how major donors give. Yet there are many others who fit into this category of “big donors” and who often had tremendous philanthropic influence but whose names and stories are not as well known. They, too, have affected our lives, but in often underappreciated ways.2

This pattern continues with major philanthropists today. Many people know of the work of big donors with famous last names like Buffett, Hewlett, Packard, Bloomberg, and Walton. And you most likely have heard of a few members of the emerging class of Gen X and Millennial megadonors, people like tech billionaire Sean Parker, who practices what he calls “hacker philanthropy.”3 But what do we know of the less famous next gen donors who have significant resources to give, who will be tremendously important to all of our lives? What about the donors in your hometown – some of whom might just be in their 20s or 30s – who write big checks to your community theater or that women's shelter you pass on your way to work?

As the influence and power of major donors – well‐known or anonymous – expands, this lack of awareness becomes even more problematic. Those at the top of the donor pyramid have more and more wealth to give, and donors of the next generation – both young inheritors and earners of major wealth – are increasingly taking their place at that apex of giving, so our need to know about them is urgent and growing. Our current global and domestic political tumult only increases this need to decipher and then help inform the plans of the most powerful and generously resourced elites. In times of uncertainty, major donors can step into the fray and shape our lives and futures in even more profound ways.

Profiles of a few celebrated individuals won't suffice. We need to understand the collective mindset and plans of the donors of this generation, even if we don't yet know which of these donors will be the Carnegies and Gateses of the future.

The impact of the next group of big donors will eclipse even the giants who've come before them, in part because they are not content to just step passively into their predecessors' shoes; they want to forge bold new paths in those shoes – muck them up and wear them thin. If the philanthropists of the fabled Gilded Age of the early 1900s set the norms for our current giving, the donors of a Golden Age of Giving that is now dawning want to change those norms. They want even greater impact.