The Art of Giving Back: Inspiring People Who Are Making the World Better

There is a certain kind of person who reaches a point of success and, instead of asking “what more can I get?”, asks something else entirely: “what can I do with this?” These are the inspiring philanthropists giving back, because they believe what they have was never truly theirs to keep.

What connects the most inspiring philanthropists giving back today is a shared belief: that what we build, earn, or inherit doesn’t truly belong to us. It passes through us. And what we do with it while it’s in our hands is, perhaps, the most important decision we’ll ever make.

Here are four people who made that decision well.

Chuck Feeney: Giving It All Away Before Anyone Even Knew

In 1988, Forbes listed Chuck Feeney among the 25 wealthiest Americans, estimating his fortune at over $1 billion. What Forbes didn’t know, what almost nobody knew, was that four years earlier Feeney had quietly transferred nearly everything he owned to a charitable foundation. He had already given it all away.

Feeney had built his fortune co-founding Duty Free Shoppers. In 1982, he set up Atlantic Philanthropies, then secretly transferred his entire business stake into the foundation’s name. Not even his partners knew. For decades, recipients were not allowed to reveal where their funding came from. Universities, hospitals, children’s education programmes, and peace initiatives across five continents were all supported. Anonymously.

Meanwhile, Feeney lived in a rented apartment, wore a $15 Casio watch, carried a plastic bag as a briefcase, and flew economy. He owned no car and no home.

His philosophy: “Giving While Living”. Give while you still have the energy to see the impact. By 2020, Atlantic Philanthropies was dissolved, its mission complete, over $8 billion given away. Chuck Feeney passed away in 2023 at 92. He called himself a ‘shabby philanthropist.’ He was one of the most inspiring philanthropists giving back in modern history.

MacKenzie Scott: The Power of Giving Without Conditions

Among the most inspiring philanthropists giving back today, MacKenzie Scott stands out for her radical approach. Imagine opening your inbox to find a message informing you that your organisation has just received several million dollars. No application, no conditions, no strings. That is exactly what MacKenzie Scott has been doing since 2019.

A novelist by training, Scott pledged to give away the majority of her wealth and has delivered at a pace few could have imagined. Since 2019, she has donated more than $26 billion to over 2,000 organisations. She does not accept applications. She does not hold press conferences. Her small team conducts quiet research, identifies organisations doing meaningful work in education, equity, and climate, and gives generously, unconditionally, and fast.

Her approach is built on radical trust. Research confirms it works: 90% of recipient organisations report stronger financial positions after receiving her gifts. In 2025 alone, she gave $7.1 billion.

In her own words: “I can share what I have with them to stand behind them as they speak and act for themselves.” Her approach challenges a deeply ingrained assumption in philanthropy: that the donor always knows best. Scott’s answer is the opposite. Step back. Trust. Let the people on the ground lead.

Yvon Chouinard: When Giving Back Means Giving Everything

In 2017, Forbes included Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, on its list of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs. He was, by their estimation, a billionaire. He was furious.

“It really, really pissed me off,” he later said. “I don’t have $1 billion in the bank. I don’t drive Lexuses.”

Chouinard started Patagonia in the 1970s as a climber who needed better gear. What he built was a company with a conscience. But as the climate crisis deepened, it felt like not enough. So in September 2022, he transferred 100% of Patagonia, worth approximately $3 billion, to an environmental trust and a nonprofit dedicated to fighting the climate crisis. Every dollar of profit not reinvested in the business now flows to conservation causes. Roughly $100 million a year.

“Earth is now our only shareholder.” Before making it big, Chouinard lived on $1 a day and salvaged dented tins of cat food. The money never changed who he was. And when he finally had it, he decided the planet needed it more than he did.

Azim Premji: An Inspiring Philanthropist Giving Back to Education

Ask most people outside India to name the world’s most generous philanthropists and the same handful of names will come up. Azim Premji rarely features on that list. That is a genuine oversight.

Premji took over his family’s small cooking oil business at just 21 and transformed it into Wipro, one of the world’s leading technology companies. Then, quietly and systematically, he started giving it back. Over $29 billion of it, according to TIME’s 2025 philanthropy list.

In 2001, he founded the Azim Premji Foundation to improve India’s public education system, with a focus on rural and disadvantaged communities. The foundation works on the ground: 263 teacher training centres, 59 field offices, and multiple universities. Over 8 million children benefited directly. This work resonates with our own mission to support education where it is needed most.

Premji was inspired by Gandhi’s concept of trusteeship: wealth is never truly owned, only held on behalf of society. “I strongly believe,” he wrote, “that those of us who are privileged to have wealth should contribute significantly to try and create a better world.” He lives modestly, shuns the spotlight, and lets the work speak.

You Don’t Have to Wait

Different people. Different parts of the world. Different causes. But the same thread: none of them waited, none of them needed applause, and all of them decided that the most human thing to do with what they had was to share it.

The mindset behind these inspiring philanthropists giving back doesn’t require extraordinary resources. It starts with seeing what you have, whether time, skills, money, or connections, not as things earned to keep, but as tools trusted to you to use well. That belief is at the heart of what the Fondation Jean-François de Clermont-Tonnerre stands for.

So here’s the question worth sitting with: what do you have right now that could make something better for someone else? And what are you waiting for?

The people in these stories didn’t change the world because of how much they had. They changed it because of what they decided to do with it. That part is available to all of us.