Twitter Founder’s Massive Charity Gift
27 October 2015 at 10:54 am
The founder and CEO of social network giant Twitter, Jack Dorsey, has announced that he will be giving 20 per cent of the shares in one of his companies to charity.
While filing his rapidly growing financial services business, Square Inc, for listing on the New York Stock Exchange, Dorsey said that a large portion of shares in the company would be given to a foundation that he established.
Rather than issue a media release it was public documents that revealed Dorsey had founded the Start Small Foundation and that he would be using the expanding value of Square Inc to help fund it.
Dorsey said in the documents that the opportunity to give back to the community was important to him.
“I believe so much in the potential of this company to drive positive impact in my lifetime that over the past two years I have given over 15 million shares, or 20 per cent of my own equity, back to both Square and the Start Small Foundation, a new organisation I created to meaningfully invest in the folks who inspire us: artists, musicians, and local businesses, with a special focus on underserved communities around the world,” Dorsey said.
“I have also committed to give 40 million more of my shares, an additional 10 per cent of the company, to invest in this cause.
“I’d rather have a smaller part of something big than a bigger part of something small.”
While little is known about the exact work that the Start Small Foundation will do, Dorsey used the platform that he founded to say that it would start work in Ferguson, Missouri.
I'm excited for the Start Small Foundation to begin its work! We will start our investment with one city: #Ferguson, Missouri. #startsmall
— Jack (@jack) October 14, 2015
It was in Ferguson that unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed by a white police officer in 2014, sparking protests, riots and a broader conversation about racism in America.
Forbes estimates Dorsey to be worth more than $US2.3 billion. Since founding Square Inc in 2010, the business has been valued at $3.2 billion.
