|
Doris Buffett helps those in need, using the family inheritance built through the investment savvy of her brother, billionaire Warren Buffett. |
The woman responsible for turning around the lives of abused women, underprivileged children and forgotten prisoners pulls up her Volvo to a private jet at the Stafford Regional Airport.
The frame around the license plate reads "In Berkshire Hathaway We Trust," a reference to the company run by her multibillionaire brother. A bumper sticker on the back says "Cavemen are people too," a tag line for Berkshire subsidiary Geico.
The woman sports a lapel pin that says "Money." A gleaming multi-carat diamond sparkles on her right hand, and she wears earrings bearing her foundation's sunshine logo.
Pilots on the NetJets plane that will carry her and six guests to Omaha, Neb., whisk away her luggage. She boards the Hawker 400 and settles into a leather seat. A bottled water has been placed beside each of the chairs, and snacks are under each seat. A catered lunch is packed away at the front.
With a wave of her hand, the woman signals she's ready for takeoff. The jet streams down the runway and heads toward Omaha for the Berkshire annual shareholders meeting. When the plane touches down, a NetJets crew puts the bags into a rented car steps away.
She'll be in Omaha for three nights with family and friends before jetting back to her beautifully restored town home on Caroline Street in downtown Fredericksburg. Then it's off to London and a dinner with Prince Charles. She'll likely spend time this summer at a lovely waterfront cottage in Rockport, Maine.
Doris Buffett, 81, is able to lead that life due to the investment genius of her brother, Warren Buffett. He managed the family's investments, and when their mother died in 1996, Doris and her sister, Bertie, inherited millions. Warren took himself out of the will.
The inheritance has allowed Doris Buffett to lead a comfortable life. But hers is just one of thousands affected. A three-hour conversation with Buffett on the way to Omaha this past Friday shows that she's more interested in using the wealth to help others than spend the money on herself.
Shortly after her mother died in 1996, Buffett set up The Sunshine Lady Foundation, which shares the nickname that Buffett has received for her many good deeds. Since then she has spent the bulk of her time figuring out ways to help turn around the lives of the less-fortunate. She calls it "paying it forward."
That means organizing a network of more than 150 "Sunbeams" across the country who are allotted up to $10,000 a year to help the less fortunate.
It means paying college tuition for Afghan women, giving scholarships to battered and sexually abused women, educating prisoners, helping the mentally ill, building facilities for Boys & Girls Clubs and paying the medical expenses of children with birth defects.
In 2007, her foundation awarded more than $12 million in grants.
CHARMED BY THE CITY
Fredericksburg has benefited greatly. Doris Buffett first met Fredericksburg when she was 15 years old in 1943. Her father had been elected to Congress, and the family couldn't find a place to live in Washington. They rented a place near Chatham Manor, and young Doris immediately fell in love.
"I really felt that charm had been discovered in Fredericksburg," she said. Meanwhile, her younger brother, Warren, hated it and returned to Omaha to live with his grandparents after just six weeks. He's mostly been there ever since.
Doris didn't share her brother's love for Omaha.
"Just think, I could have lived my entire life here," she said after landing Friday. "Sort of a scary thought." Later, however, she takes pride showing her guests around town, including a drive by the home where her brother has lived the past several decades.
Doris' initial love for Fredericksburg has brought her back numerous times in her life, and she now spends most of her time here.
Among the local projects that her foundation has funded are mentoring programs for at-risk high school students, the New Vision organization that helps female ex-offenders re-enter society, a program through the University of Mary Washington that pays for student service projects in Honduras, and residential facilities for adults with mental illness. The foundation pays for all Fredericksburg residents to use the Dixon Park pool for free.
A HELPING HAND
When evaluating projects, Buffett's foundation takes a page out of the famous investment strategy of Warren Buffett, investing only in what it understands. It chooses projects that will allow the recipient to help him or herself--such as a college education. "We never give a handout," the foundation's brochure says. "We give a hand up."
There's no shortage of requests. When Warren Buffett announced a few years ago that he was donating the bulk of his fortune to The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Oracle of Omaha received thousands of letters from all over the world asking for help.
Her brother, who considers himself a "wholesale" philanthropist, lacked the time and inclination to evaluate the letters. So he asked Doris, a "retail" philanthropist, whether she could help. She agreed, and he said he'd keep sending money as long as she did. Doris gets thousands of such letters forwarded from Omaha.
"He says he'll fund it until he runs out of money, and he doesn't see that happening anytime soon," Doris Buffett said.
She's now looking for her next local project and suspects it will have something to do with an orphanage for children. In the meantime, she'll lead a life that allows her to meet with people such as Bill Gates, Bono and now Prince Charles. But it's the charity work that remains her focus.
"That's always been in my heart," she said.
Bill Freehling: 540/374-5405
Email: bfreehling@freelancestar.com
