Cheapskates.com.

• Author: KOERNER, BRENDAN I.
• Position: Dot.com tycoons' stinginess

What the new rich don't know about philanthropy

WHEN I WORKED IN THE NEW YORK bureau of U.S. News & World Report, the fax machine was constantly spewing out self-congratulatory pabulum from high-tech firms. When deadlines didn't loom, I'd occasionally entertain myself by sifting through these laughably overwrought paeans to bland "breakthroughs"--"Revenio Announces Revolutionary Dialog Marketing Software Solution!" or "Users Applaud NetLedger's Customer Service!"

As dot-com hysteria peaked, however, I noticed an increasing number of communiques devoted to less Mammon-centric feats. Mixed in with the notes hailing venture-capital deals were salutes to geek munificence, bearing toot-our-own-horn headlines like "Sun Supports eBay's Efforts to Bridge the Digital Divide for Seniors," "Granitar Turns Red Sox Win Over Yankees Into a Hit for the Jimmy Fund," or my personal favorite, "New Economy SWAT Team Formed to Save One of Nation's Largest Dance Centers".

At least according to these self-generated press clippings, the Robber Barons 2.0 are fast earning points for entry into Paradise. Rich beyond all reason despite NASDAQ's wanton fluctuations (most either still have billions of dollars in stock or were able to cash out before the recent drop) top dot-com tycoons are funneling millions into a panoply of unobjectionable causes: education, homeless shelters, and measles vaccines for Third World infants, for example. Taking heed of Andrew Carnegie's legendary credo, "He who dies rich dies disgraced," the Baby Billionaires who've solidified their paper wealth are vowing to give it all away. "If we have a dollar or a penny when we die, we'll feel like we miscalculated," says Netscape co-founder James Barksdale, one of Silicon Valley's budding Rockefellers who has a couple of billion to his name. So, to paraphrase the first line of Christopher Hitchens' anti-Mother Theresa polemic, The Missionary Position, who would be so base as to pick on these computer geeks, who have promised their wealth to the needy and destitute?

Despite its clever co-optation of rhetoric befitting a Sally Struthers infomercial, the dot-com set's spotty philanthropic track record makes them an easy mark. The flurry of press releases trumpeting "e-philanthropy" and a Golden Age of giving belies a disturbing stinginess among the New Economy's young aristocracy. Their forays into charity are frequently marred by hubris or naivete, laying bare the techno-elite's substantial disconnect from the world beyond IPOs and Pentium chips. The flowering of social responsibility among dot-commers may have all-important buzz, but for now it seems more of a public-relations confection than an honest-to-goodness trend.

A slew of figures attest to the geeks' relative close-fistedness. Dot-com tacks gleefully point out that charitable giving leapt by over $15.9 billion between 1998 and 1999. But that simple stat obscures a Scroogishness among the very wealthiest Americans.

Despite the past decade's gangbusters economy and the attendant widening of the wealth gap, charitable donations remain stuck at around two percent of the U.S. gross domestic product. Among Silicon Valley households, which have prospered far more than most, the ratio of giving to income is just 2.1 percent, scarcely distinguishable from the national average and well below the figures for such down-at-the-heels states as Alabama (2.5 percent) and Idaho (2.4 percent). Of those Silicon Valley households with a net worth in excess of $1 million, a whopping 45 percent give less than $2,000 per year, a number that takes into account non-cash gifts like stock options.

Nationwide, Americans earning over $100,000 per year give an average of 2.2 percent of their incomes to charity, a drop from the 3-percent rate of six years ago. Apparently ignorant of the age-old slogan "Give until it hurts," upper-class donors rarely flirt with even a moment's discomfort when it comes to philanthropy. Claude Rosenberg, author of Wealthy and Wise: How You and America Can Get the Most Out of Your Giving, estimates that Americans with annual incomes above the $100,000 mark could increase their giving sixfold without hampering their ability to cruise about in leather-interiored SUVs and eat mail-order steaks, for those raking in more than $1 million, giving could be upped 10 times.

Corporate America has been equally reluctant to share its unprecedented wealth. Companies currently donate around one percent of pre-tax profits to charity, a substantial decrease from the 1.5 percent average of the recession-plagued...