Buffett Children Emerge as a Force in Charity

A nice article about the Buffett children and what they may do with their substantial foundations.

Susie, Howard and Peter Buffett — who, like their self-effacing father seem little affected by money — spent the week focusing not on what they might have received. Instead, the siblings said in interviews, they were already at work trying to figure out how to manage a gift from their father valued at about $1 billion each that will go to their own charitable foundations.

That will propel them, along with a fourth and larger foundation named for their late mother, into the top ranks of philanthropy — dwarfed, to be sure, by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the $60 billion or more endowment from the Gates and Buffett fortunes.

The younger Buffetts, given their current interests, could emerge as powerful forces in the areas of early childhood education, safe drinking water for poor countries and the well-being of Native Americans.

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Buffett Children Emerge as a Force in Charity

By JEFF BAILEY

Published: July 2, 2006

DECATUR, Ill., June 28 — The three middle-aged children of Warren E. Buffett watched along with the rest of the country last week as their father, the celebrated investor from Omaha, told the world that he would pass the bulk of his $40 billion personal fortune to the charitable foundation of Bill Gates, a fellow billionaire, and his wife, Melinda.