George Kaiser and philanthropy...

[bokworker]

I wasn't sure where to put this but came across this article in today's WSJ. Mr Kaiser has consistently been one of the top philanthropists in the country but made his intentions known in a more formal way by signing this pledge. Tulsa is extremely lucky to have a person like Mr Kaiser..


http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/08/04/the-gates-buffett-giving-pledge-the-full-list-of-donors/

[we vs us]

Good stuff.

[Hoss]

Good stuff.

Too bad FB got banned.  I bet his head is exploding reading this but unable to respond.  LOLZ...

[dsjeffries]

You can click on each name to read their letters which declare why they are dedicated to giving back. Here is Kaiser's letter, which gives us a little more insight into our very private philanthropist:



I suppose I arrived at my charitable commitment largely through guilt. I recognized early on, that my good fortune was not due to superior personal character or initiative so much as it was to dumb luck. I was blessed to be born in an advanced society with caring parents. So, I had the advantage of both genetics (winning the "ovarian lottery") and upbringing. As I looked around at those who did not have these advantages, it became clear to me that I had a moral obligation to direct my resources to help right that balance.

America's "social contract" is equal opportunity. It is the most fundamental principle in our founding documents and it is what originally distinguished us from the old Europe. Yet, we have failed in achieving that seminal goal; in fact, we have lost ground in recent years. Another distinctly American principle is a shared partnership between the public and private sectors to foster the public good. So, if the democratically-directed public sector is shirking, to some degree, its responsibility to level the playing field, more of that role must shift to the private sector.

As I addressed my charitable purposes, all of this seemed pretty clear: I was only peripherally responsible for my own good fortune; I was morally duty bound to help those left behind by the accident of birth; America's root principle was equal opportunity but we were far from achieving it. Then I had to drill down to identify the charitable purposes most likely to right that wrong.

The discoveries of stem cell research and brain development in recent years provided some guidance for me. Though almost all of us grew up believing in the concept of equal opportunity, most of us simultaneously carried the unspoken and inconsistent "dirty little secret" that genetics drove much of accomplishment so that equality was not achievable. What the new research seemed to suggest, however, was that brain cells were functionally unformed at birth and that only through the communication among them - driven by trial and error interpretation of sensory stimulation shortly after birth - did our cognitive and social/emotional skills develop. As I sometimes joke, I remember vividly that place before birth as being warm, wet, dark...and boring. Then, suddenly, as I emerged, I was bombarded with sensory overload and had to interpret all of that strange stimulus. Most of that interpretation takes place by age three; after that, we can modify our destiny but it is a lot harder.

No child is responsible for the circumstances of her birth and should not be punished for it in this life. (I will leave the question of second chances to other pulpits.) I have therefore developed my charitable focus around the concept of providing the greatest opportunity for self fulfillment for each child, focusing on those who arrive in the least advantaged circumstances. (A purer focus would be in areas of much greater disadvantage in the world where fewer dollars accomplish more. I honor the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's commitment to the principle that "every life has equal value" but will leave my justification for a primarily American focus to another dissertation.) That governing concept has led us to those initiatives which attempt to reverse the  generational cycle of poverty, especially for very young children and their families: prenatal healthcare; early learning and development for at-risk kids, birth to three; family healthcare; parenting training; job and income assistance for families with young children; operating a robust program to provide alternatives to incarceration for mothers who have committed non-violent crimes, et cetera.

These efforts focus most heavily on the causes of poverty but we also dedicate resources to the symptoms, especially in these difficult times and in our relatively poor part of the country - food, clothing, shelter, healthcare and civic projects that promote inclusiveness and vibrancy. We generate a mix of projects, some of which are leading edge and more that import best practices from the greater creativity and experience of others. We attempt to leverage other resources, public and private, by our example. We try not to let a budget drive our expenditures but rather pursue those efforts through which we can make a true difference at an appropriate cost, whether less than or more than our targeted allocation. We remain lean in our central organization and partner with the leading practitioners in our fields of endeavor. We tend to direct our purposes and carefully monitor targeted results on a contemporaneous basis rather than scattering gifts and trusting to retrospective general narratives of success from the beneficiaries. All in all, it is an intoxicating and yet frustrating journey, led by an extraordinarily committed and talented cadre of leaders.

Now that I have told you far more than you wanted to know about how I arrived at my charitable commitment and direction, it is time to make the pledge: I am entranced by Warren's and Bill's visionary appeal to those who have accumulated unconscionable resources, to dedicate at least half of them back to purposes more useful than dynastic perpetuation. My family is very well provided for and they join me in my intention to devote virtually all of my financial resources to the same general charitable purposes I have pursued in life, better informed in specifics by our experience and the experience of others. If enough acolytes follow Bill's and Warren's example, then maybe we will more closely approach the ideal of equal opportunity throughout the United States and the world.

George B. Kaiser

[bokworker]

Too bad FB got banned.  I bet his head is exploding reading this but unable to respond.  LOLZ...

Channeling FB...."yeah but what about all the strings attached?"

[bokworker]

Excellent letter from Mr Kaiser. While humble, the real value of what Mr Kaiser has done is take his "ovarian lottery" winners status and multiply it many times over. Hard work and intelligence on his part while realizing the advantages he had to start with. And I suspect that his total giving will be well in excess of half of what he has earned and accumulated.

[Hoss]

Channeling FB...."yeah but what about all the strings attached?"

http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=13943.msg140273#msg140273

I always loved his references to "Herr. Kaiser".... LOL.

[Conan71]

http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=13943.msg140273#msg140273

I always loved his references to "Herr. Kaiser".... LOL.

Don't you know he could have added something about Jewish guilt to the mix?

Personally, I far prefer people like Mr. Kaiser determining where his wealth goes than government bureaucrats deciding.  I'm quite certain Ken Levitt and others at the KFF are making lives far better than the government ever would if they had confiscated more of his wealth via taxes.

[nathanm]

I'm quite certain Ken Levitt and others at the KFF are making lives far better than the government ever would if they had confiscated more of his wealth via taxes.

Funny that he wrote that government is shirking its duty. It's an interesting juxtaposition.

[Conan71]

Funny that he wrote that government is shirking its duty. It's an interesting juxtaposition.

Until the last century, charity was not one of the primary functions of government.

[SXSW]

I know his main concern is early childhood education, but one of the best things Mr. Kaiser could do for Tulsa is to donate to our local universities, especially TU.  I've said it before but I think building up TU to be a larger part of Tulsa is very important to the growth of this city (see my threads in the Planning forum), especially research and graduate programs.  Kaiser has already given $50 million to OU to start their School of Community Medicine in Tulsa.  I hope he will donate more when OU and TU create a full medical school in Tulsa, and I hope they can somehow use the downtown hospital as their 'home base' and share facilities with OSU's program there.  

I also know that the river and parks are important to him.  If he decides to give more to trails/parks I would hope that would involve extending the new dual jog/bike trails south of 71st Street to the Jenks bridge and extending the west bank trail south of Turkey Mountain to connect to the trails at Riverwalk Crossing.  That and a larger, nicer festival park that encompasses the Mid-Continent concrete plant on the west bank.  

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

I wasn't sure where to put this, but this thread seems appropriate. George Kaiser essentially donating Bank of Oklahoma to Tulsa is a huge deal. The George Kaiser Family Foundation which has already done so much will have the majority shares of BOK plus much more.

It is hard to imagine how much difference they will be able to make with revenue going from in the tens of millions a few years ago (before the Gathering Place) up to hundreds of millions a year in perpetuity (hopefully).

The Gathering Place is a massive endeavor that has increased what GKFF has spent to about $200 million per year, but that level of spending was only temporary and not sustainable with their current level of endowment. However, with 90% of George Kaiser's wealth being donated to the GKFF, they could potentially spend $280 million per year! That would be like building a new Gathering Place every year or building about 30 Guthrie Greens or about 25 renovations on the scale of the Ford & Fox buildings on Main. Obviously, they will not be focusing on buildings or just economic development, and most of the revenue will likely go to infant/health/education, but based on what they've done for the Brady District, there could be many more great developments ahead.

George Kaiser plans for his foundation's future with a gift only he can give: Oklahoma's biggest bank


Tulsa has seen just a small fraction of George Kaiser's fortune. Yet he has a long-range vision of how the George Kaiser Family Foundation will spend its last dollar.

His namesake philanthropic organization continues to spend tens of millions of dollars each year on early childhood education, reducing female incarceration, economic development and, of course, that two-thirds-finished park on the Arkansas River. The foundation, according to executives and tax filings, has spent about $1 billion.

There are billions more left for the oilman and banker to give away. And still Kaiser is thinking about the end, about what will happen to the Bank of Oklahoma — the bank he bought because he worried about what the city and state would look like without it. He has pondered what he hopes his fortune will accomplish and come up with a strategy to achieve it, a plan that will last long after he has gone on, as he says, "to one of those two unknowable places."

Kaiser's plan will eventually give a nonprofit, the George Kaiser Family Foundation, control of Oklahoma's largest bank. The bank is a corporate entity that has thousands of employees and about $32 billion in assets.

The transfer itself is part of the unwinding of an economic engine that will leave the foundation, an institution dedicated to breaking the cycle of poverty in Tulsa, even larger than it already is. It's part of Kaiser's promise to give away the majority of his wealth — the Giving Pledge. Unlike some billionaires who took the pledge, Kaiser's philanthropic focus is almost entirely local.

Foundation's future
He could still change his mind, but Kaiser, 75, doesn't plan on selling his controlling interest in BOK Financial, the Bank of Oklahoma's parent company.

He told the Tulsa World that he and his namesake foundation have designed "a plan to avoid the necessity of selling a controlling position in BOKF because of the importance of the bank in supporting Oklahoma small and medium-size businesses."

How the transfer will take shape is still being worked out with regulators, but it would likely take place through his estate after Kaiser's death.

The bank's stock forms the core of Kaiser's remaining fortune. His 61 percent stake was worth $3.2 billion at close of trading Friday. There's about $7.8 billion, according to Forbes, left of his personal fortune.

Kaiser has given the George Kaiser Family Foundation more than $4 billion in cash, stock and stakes in businesses, according to the foundation's annual tax filings with the IRS.

He himself is mum on how much there is to give away, saying the foundation will receive "the balance" of his remaining personal assets when he dies.

"The amount depends upon when that day is and how successful I am in enhancing or dissipating the assets in the meantime," Kaiser said in an email. "I plan to keep flying coach, shopping at Wal-Mart and buying Joseph A. Bank suits to help preserve the ultimate foundation corpus."

Business relationship
The foundation is a bank customer.

The foundation's IRS Form 990 for 2015, the latest year available, shows that it had a $206 million line of credit from BOKF and a smaller loan for $2.3 million for work in the Brady Arts District. In 2013, there was a loan for $55 million, that year's filing showed.

The documents describe the loans as "arms-length transactions," which means the loans are at market rates, giving the bank, mostly owned by Kaiser, the ability to make revenue off philanthropic efforts.

Kaiser said loans from BOKF to him are typically at higher rates than loans he has from other banks.

However, GKFF is among several customer relationships BOKF has with members of its board and shareholders, including Kaiser. If properly disclosed, they aren't unusual or illegal. They are closely regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of Currency.

BOKF CEO Steve Bradshaw said: "That's a significant relationship. The foundation is a large entity here in Tulsa. ... We're going to try to earn our fair share, which we consider to be nearly 100 percent of any great relationship that's available to us. We compete for that. GKFF certainly doesn't do all their business with us."

The relationship is a two-way street. BOKF, according to SEC filings, purchased $7.5 million worth of historic tax credits from the foundation in 2016 — which were used to offset the company's state income tax liability in 2016 — and in 2017.

Following the money
The relationship between BOKF and the foundation is part of a larger pattern of Kaiser's for-profit enterprises interacting with the George Kaiser Family Foundation — a pattern that has persisted despite media scrutiny.

The foundation itself is a complex entity whose holdings are a window into Kaiser's own, tax filings show.

At the end of 2015, the foundation, like Kaiser, owned a stake in Memjet Holdings LTD, a San Diego-based printing company; a solar energy company; and The Oil Center buildings in downtown Oklahoma City. It also owns a ship used by Kaiser's natural gas importing company, Excelerate Energy. And more than 4 percent of BOK Financial, per SEC filings.

The two are legally separate. Kaiser can't appoint a majority of the voting power to the foundation's board, and once Kaiser has contributed something to the foundation, it can never revert back to him.

However, the slow growth of the foundation's giving, its legal structure and the failure of one of its government-financed investments, Solyndra, have attracted scrutiny over the past decade.

As an example of how the foundation invested alongside Kaiser, Bloomberg reported in 2013 that the foundation owned a supertanker called the Excellence, which is among Excelerate Energy's fleet.

Kaiser co-owned Excelerate at the time and now wholly controls the company, according to its website.

The Bloomberg report came eight years after The New York Times used GKFF as an example of how supporting organizations — the type of nonprofit that the foundation is — give tax benefits to those who endow them without being required to give away a certain amount of their assets every year, unlike private foundations.

The Times reported in 2005 that the foundation had given away only $3.4 million to charitable causes.

Fred Dorwart, Kaiser's longtime attorney and friend and a GKFF board member, told the Times that Kaiser wanted to help fund a safety net for the Tulsa region, beautify Tulsa and have a program for disadvantaged children.

That story came at a time early in Kaiser's giving — the first Educare early childhood education facility was being planned. The foundation's giving would soon ramp up into the tens of millions, then the hundreds. All around Tulsa, what Dorwart described is coming to fruition.

Financial philosophy
Kaiser, in an email to the World, compared his foundation's principles to those of the Times.

He said: "One of the many guiding principles of GKFF could be called the New York Times rule. Their masthead ... says 'all the news that's fit to print.' GKFF feels the same way about its flexible budget — if the somewhat proven, good charitable ideas within our mission prudently require less than our ideal contemplated distributions, we will underspend the 'budget.' On the other hand, if we have more good ideas than money, we will overspend."

GKFF spent $132 million in grants and contributions in 2015. In 2014, that number was $200.5 million. By comparison, the city of Tulsa's general fund spent $257.7 million in fiscal year 2014.

Ken Levit, executive director of the GKFF, said that in 2016 the foundation spent more than $200 million in grants, contributions and other projects.

While Kaiser has pledged "virtually all" of his remaining fortune to GKFF, it appears that he is in no hurry to give it away or to sell companies he controls.

He backed away from selling The Woodlands, Texas-based Excelerate Energy earlier this year, according to media reports. However, he did sell his stake in Tulsa-based Summit ESP to Halliburton in early July.

Kaiser said the same "Times" principle applies to distributing his remaining fortune and to the long-term draw-down of the foundation's assets.

"We will let needs and solutions guide the speed of our distributions rather than put intense pressure on the trustees to liquidate in a hurry at some point and make sub-optimal judgments," he said.

Impact down the line
Bradshaw and other business associates describe Kaiser's business practices as those of a "contrarian" — willing to buck the status quo in favor of pursuing long-term profits.

That long-term view is seen by Bradshaw as a competitive advantage for BOKF.

"We don't waste time thinking about the bank selling, because George is not a seller," the bank's CEO said. "I can't emphasize enough what a gift that is."

The size and scope of Kaiser's gifts, both present and future, aren't lost on another business associate, QuikTrip CEO Chet Cadieux, who serves on the BOKF board of directors and the foundation's board.

He noted that while other cities had seen large-scale philanthropic giving, those cities are often larger and wealthier and have bigger economies. As a percentage of Tulsa's economic output, Kaiser-originated philanthropy has to be larger than most, he said.

"I can't imagine there's another city that has someone who's been as generous as he has," Cadieux said in an April interview with the World.

He also noted that the time frame GKFF is investing over isn't a brief window.

"I think a lot of the stuff that they're doing is going to have a much bigger impact than people know, because they're long plays," Cadieux said. "He is working to try to treat the cause rather than the symptoms of various problems in our city. ... It takes decades to have an impact, and in all likelihood the person who gave isn't going to be around for everyone to say, 'Hey, way to go.' "

An end-point, but not a date
In its close to two decades of existence, GKFF has spent $1 billion, a significant but not large fraction of its current assets. Theoretically, with the continued contributions of Kaiser's remaining wealth, the foundation's assets could last forever. It has a stock portfolio worth hundreds of millions, and the returns could fund its efforts in perpetuity.

While the foundation hopes to earn a good return on investments, Kaiser said the "dominant goal" is to distribute the funds. That distribution could occur over several decades, beyond the lifespan of Kaiser and those he has entrusted to accomplish his philanthropic objectives.

Commitment to, and knowledge of, Kaiser's objectives and the foundation's long-term mission will lessen as the people who have witnessed the philanthropy's path die, he believes. The foundation's board members — trustees — will be tasked with continuing the mission. Once there are only three of those trustees, or their successors, remaining, the foundation will cease to exist in the way it does today.

"We will distribute our last dollar when ... the identified trustees and successor trustees diminish to a minimum practical governance group," he said in a May email. "The foundation will distribute its remaining proceeds — over a leisurely time period — to supported organizations or to an administrative trust established for their benefit."

Kaiser and Levit have long acknowledged that the foundation's mission could be an 80- to 100-year project, giving its benefactor the ability only to guess as to how the transfer of wealth will work out.

"Ken is indomitable and will be there at or near the end, as will my kids, I suspect; I don't think I'll make it," Kaiser said.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/george-kaiser-plans-for-his-foundation-s-future-with-a/article_313a2ef1-11fa-58e8-9a8f-19db68aa3cce.html

[SXSW]

I know his main concern is early childhood education, but one of the best things Mr. Kaiser could do for Tulsa is to donate to our local universities, especially TU.  I've said it before but I think building up TU to be a larger part of Tulsa is very important to the growth of this city (see my threads in the Planning forum), especially research and graduate programs.  Kaiser has already given $50 million to OU to start their School of Community Medicine in Tulsa.  I hope he will donate more when OU and TU create a full medical school in Tulsa, and I hope they can somehow use the downtown hospital as their 'home base' and share facilities with OSU's program there.  

I also know that the river and parks are important to him.  If he decides to give more to trails/parks I would hope that would involve extending the new dual jog/bike trails south of 71st Street to the Jenks bridge and extending the west bank trail south of Turkey Mountain to connect to the trails at Riverwalk Crossing.  That and a larger, nicer festival park that encompasses the Mid-Continent concrete plant on the west bank.  

Funny seeing one of my posts from 7 years ago pop up.  Still feel strongly about TU and its importance to the city.  And it wasn't Kaiser but there are new trails from 71st to the Jenks bridge.  Still hoping one is extended south from Turkey Mountain to Riverwalk.  And instead of the Mid-Continent site Kaiser bought the Blair estate and is building one of the best new urban parks in the country.  

[heironymouspasparagus]

Exceptional read.  This post has "held up" well over the last few years.  Was very glad to see it renewed, so sent to all the people on my 'mailing list'.  There has been a recognition for many years - much ridiculed by the RWRE when Obama pointed out the reality - by many extremely wealthy people that they were indeed lucky by an accident of birth and that they did not do it all as the "rugged individualist" who made billions all by themselves.  Never has happened, never will happen.  There is always a support system in place that makes it happen.


At one time, there was an understanding of the economics behind an estate tax which has been warped and twisted over the years into the oligarchic nonsense we have today. As kids there was a board game that taught people the basic fundamentals of economic activity. It appears to have been lost in the mists of time, but anyone who ever played "Monopoly" understands what happens when all the wealth gets concentrated into 1 hand. The game is over! Scale that up to the national economy - same reality applies. That is why there was an estate tax!

The game also shows it's age by the fact that there was a 'luxury tax' and rich people could go to jail.!

[Conan71]

Somehow it escaped me that he was born into wealth.  I had always assumed that when he mentioned the ovarian lottery that he was referring to where/when he was born and then all else fell into place.  Weren't his parents Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany?