Billionaire investor and hedge fund manager Ray Dalio has worked to come up with meaningful ways to give back during the holidays.
Key Details
- Dalio’s successful investments have allowed him to donate considerable amounts to various charities. His own charitable organization, Dalio Philanthropies, allows the Dalio family to support many causes, including education, entrepreneurship, ocean exploration, medical research, and more.
- Most recently, Dalio has embarked on a campaign to redefine how people give gifts to one another.
- The campaign encourages individuals to give money to family and friends to make donations rather than gifting what he calls “wasteful gifts.”
Why it’s important
Holiday gift giving has become a common way for people to show friends and loved ones that they care, but Dalio’s different take on giving encourages individuals to spread love and caring further than their own circle.
Dalio told nonprofit Philanthropy Roundtable that spending on holiday candy yearly is greater than the combined budget for the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and Habitat for Humanity. Dalio’s campaign, he hopes, will change that.
“It bothered me, and it bothered a lot of people, to give wasteful gifts when so many people are suffering. So, what I started to do was give people money to donate to their favorite charity,” Dalio told Philanthropy Roundtable.
To ensure that the funds are appropriately used, Dalio gifts this money through a charity called TisBest. TisBest gift cards allow a gift recipient to donate the funds to a charity of their choice.
Since Dalio started this campaign around 2020, he estimates that thousands of people have taken part in changing the way they give gifts.
“I hope to change holiday gifting so that people can understand and enjoy that kind of gift. It’s so much more in keeping with the season. When people tell me, ‘Oh, I donated it to this charity’… that’s meaningful for me. The conversations are wonderful,” Dalio says.
