Bill Gates decides to give you $10 billion. What do you do with it?
Take $100 million off the top and put the rest in a trust bequeathed to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation when I die. Take the interest from the trust every year (which would be at least $200 million).Since I’ll never spend $100 million (plus whatever interest that money generates) no matter what I do, I get to spend over $200 million on things I support and still never have to look at a price tag as long as I live.Half goes to slow money investments (Slow Money Institute – Investing in Local and Organic Food), expanded to include manufacturing. Staying within 50 miles might be hard, it’s not that populated around here, so I’d probably look at a map for a while and lay out some borders. A lot of local farmers and manufacturers would get a nice boost to their working capital at very reasonable rates, and any returns would be reinvested the same way.Half of what’s left goes to the same type of investments, but on a national level.The rest goes to causes I support. The ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center, National Resources Defense Council, ProPublica, Electronic Frontier Foundation. Churches that are helping people (religion doesn’t mean anything to me but a lot of local churches do very good work). Funds that help the families of fallen cops, firemen, and soldiers. Local and state politicians who embrace my values. There’s a foundation in New York that trains inner city kids for IT jobs while also teaching them a lot about how to live outside the world they grew up in, and they’d get a bunch. Some endowments to research diseases that don’t get a lot of attention. I’d find more :)All donations would be anonymous. No buildings with my name on them. No black tie galas where I receive an award. I don’t care if anyone knows my name, and I’d really prefer if they didn’t.As long as I have the house I want (which isn’t big, or fancy), time to spend on the hobbies I’ve never really gotten to pursue, and the ability to eat whatever I want wherever I want I’d be fine. Maybe I’d buy a Ferrari GTO right before I die, just to have owned one :)