Charles Feeney, a philanthropist who Bill Gates once called the “ultimate example of Giving While Living,” has passed away at the age of 92.
Feeney, over the course of his life, gave more than $8 billion to charities, often anonymously. His death was announced Monday by The Atlantic Philanthropies, an organization he founded in 1982 to oversee his philanthropic efforts. In 2020, the organization shut down, having successfully given away all of its funds.
That multibillion-dollar fortune came from Feeney’s earnings from Duty Free Shoppers, which he cofounded in 1960. The chain of airport stores, which specializes in luxury items, has over 850 locations. In 1996, he sold his shares in the company to LVMH and turned his attentions to giving that money away.
“I had one idea that never changed in my mind—that you should use your wealth to help people,” Feeney once said. “Try it, you’ll like it. It’s much more fun to give while you are alive than to give when you are dead.”
After Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett launched the Giving Pledge, Feeney was the 59th billionaire to take it.
Among the donations Feeney made over the course of his lifetime are a $350 million gift to Cornell University, to help develop state-of-the-art facilities for Cornell Tech, a graduate applied science and engineering campus. He also supported the transformation of the health care infrastructure and public health system in Vietnam and was the catalyst to rebuild the Republic of Ireland’s and Northern Ireland’s university infrastructure.
Closer to home, he supported efforts to find cures for cancer and cardiovascular disease at the Mission Bay campus of the University of California, San Francisco.
“Use your wealth to help people. Use your wealth to create institutions to help people,” Feeney said. “When it comes down to it, it’s always people.”