Superphilanthropy
Max Borders, The Foundation for Economic Education
You are reading this book right now thanks to the generosity of others. It’s a sign of the times.
That is, philanthropy brought you this experience. There is the philanthropy of Tom Phillips, a man who started a media empire out of his garage with a $1,000 investment. Phillips’s foundation awards the Robert Novak Fellowship, of which I am a recipient.
Second, and perhaps just as importantly, you’re reading this because of a clever team of innovators who created Kickstarter, an online crowd-funding tool that allows writers, artists, filmmakers, and dancers to raise capital more easily. This was a good avenue for me because I wanted to publish my own book, in my own way and at my own pace. A couple of hundred people on Kickstarter—some generous friends and family, some strangers—enabled me to do just that. Many are in the same financial situation as I (which is to say not rich). But crowd-funding changes the game. It’s what Glenn Reynolds has called “an army of Davids,” only they have giving spirits not hurling slings.
It is only fitting then that I devote this chapter to superphilanthropy.
