Quotes from David Callahan

The passing down of big inheritances is also moving the upper class to the left, since heirs tend to be more liberal than their parents in what might be called "Rockefeller syndrome.

In contrast to the crapshoot of electoral politics, investing in think tanks offers a reliable and proven way to slowly change policy and culture over time—and without the high-profile controversies that can come with partisan giving, which is often a concern to wealthy donors who also run businesses.

One foundation-backed effort to provide long-acting birth control to teenagers in Colorado helped lower the birthrate among teenagers across the state by a stunning 40 percent from 2009 to 2013, and sharply cut the number of abortions, too. Despite this success, the Colorado legislature refused to provide ongoing funding for the program—at which point a group of private funders stepped in ensure it would continue, including Ben Walton, an heir to the Walmart fortune who lives in Denver.

What is clear is that this growing river of money will dramatically expand the size and influence of a new power elite of living donors that already wields enormous clout. One analysis by the scholar Kristin Goss found that nearly half of America's top two hundred philanthropists—including many Giving Pledge members—have expressed an interest in shaping public policy.

From 2003 to 2013, according to one study, itemized charitable contributions from people making $500,000 or more increased by 57 percent, while itemized contributions from people making $10,000,000 or more increased by 104 percent over the same period. Some 30,000 new private foundations have been created since 2000, along with 185,000 donor-advised funds, which offer a simpler way to channel money to charitable causes.

In his book Born on Third Base, Chuck Collins—the Oscar Meyer heir who gave away his fortune—argues that Congress should establish two types of charitable entities and give them different tax benefits. Donations to groups that "alleviate poverty, reduce inequality, and address urgent social problems" would be fully deductible; donations to other nonprofits would not get the full benefit.

Although the Giving Pledge would become well-known, and was even featured on 60 Minutes, the actual mechanics of the campaign have received little attention. From the start, the idea was not just to get America's richest people to promise big bucks for charity; it was also to help these pledgers to give effectively.

Since the 1970s wealthy donors have heavily financed efforts to cut taxes and public spending. The success they've had helps explain why government now can't do as many things, which gives private funders new leverage in shaping society.

Even if big reforms do happen—say, a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts—the discretionary resources that government can deploy to tackle social or environmental problems are likely to keep falling for many years to come. In future decades, government is likely to spend much of its money cutting checks for seniors and bondholders.

In the early twentieth century, when John D. Rockefeller was petitioning Congress for a charter to create the first foundation, a top nonprofit leader of that time, Edward Devine, argued the charter should only be granted if public officials had some say over the selection of board members. The idea never went anywhere and has rarely been raised since. Foundations answer only to themselves.

Warren Buffett has famously attributed much of his success to "winning the ovarian lottery"—that is, being born as a white male to middle-class parents in an America on the cusp of the postwar boom.

no philanthropist has done more than Soros to soften America's drug laws. Soros got behind that cause in the mid-1990s, funding a new drug policy think tank and bankrolling the push for medicinal marijuana, widely seen as a bridge to legalization. Today, two decades after Soros began his push—and many tens of millions of dollars later—several states have legalized pot, and more are likely to follow.

OSF was also the first major foundation to get behind same-sex marriage. From 2000 to 2005, a pivotal period in the marriage equality fight, OSF invested millions in LGBT rights organizations. This early money, some of which went to back state-level fights, like a 2005 legal challenge in Iowa, was arguably more important than the bigger money that came in from other funders later on. OSF grants also went to frontline activist groups fighting for immigrants and, later, to Black Lives Matter.

The wealthy also play an ever larger role in deciding who lives and who dies. Or, more specifically, which medical problems get conquered versus which are neglected.

the pet health interests of rich people may or may not line up with what society overall should give priority to in seeking medical breakthroughs. As the Times warned: "The philanthropists' war on disease risks widening that gap, as a number of the campaigns, driven by personal adversity, target illnesses that predominantly afflict white people—like cystic fibrosis, melanoma and ovarian cancer.

Unfortunately, the ranks of financial winners include few graduates of community colleges, and as a result big gifts to such institutions are rare. When LaGuardia Community College in New York City received a $2 million donation from Goldman Sachs in 2015, it doubled the school's endowment. The gift was unusual enough to make the New York Times. By comparison, Harvard raised an average of $3.1 million a day during 2015.

It's not uncommon for donors to make various demands in return for campus cash. In one case, the foundation of BB&T Bank offered $1 million for business education to Western Carolina University, a public state school in Cullowhee, North Carolina. Among the reported stipulations of the gift was that the university's College of Business make Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand required reading for students. The school took the money.

When donors hold views we detest, we tend to see them as unfairly tilting policy debates with their money. Yet when we like their causes, we often view them as heroically stepping forward to level the playing field against powerful special interests or backward public majorities.

Most media coverage of philanthropy doesn't make much distinction among charitable gifts—and nor does the IRS for that matter. You get the same tax deduction whether you donate to a genuine charitable cause, say a food bank, or donate to a think tank with an ideological agenda.

The think tank was invented in the twentieth century to offer objective analysis of complex issues. Now, though, think tanks often operate as the motherships of ideological movements on both the left and the right—weaving together a jumble of values and ideas into a coherent story and actionable policy agenda.

There's something heroic about wealthy crusaders who aim to spend down their fortunes to improve society—that is, assuming you like what they're doing. If you don't, that sense of urgency can be unnerving. How many liberals, for example, would be thrilled if the Koch brothers announced that they intended to give away their vast fortune as quickly as possible to make "America a better place"?