The Season of Goodwill

It is a commonly known fact that this festive period is often referred to as the season of goodwill. However, just sometimes people surprise us by acting out of goodwill anyway.

The co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, who helped co-found the popular social network site Facebook has today been one of the youngest to sign up to a support group and ultimately give away the majority of his wealth.

The support group was founded by another billionaire, Bill Gates and his wife along with another person, Warren Buffet. Through the group the three try to encourage America’s wealthiest to help charity but to do this in full view of the public.

At just 26 Mark is one of the youngest to sign up, schools in New Jersey were helped by him when he gave away $100m in shares to them stating

"People wait until late in their career to give back. But why wait when there is so much to be done?"

He further goes into detail saying that we currently have a generation of young people who have been successful and who have made millions and billions of pounds. He says that it is these type of people who need to give back earlier in their lifetime so that maybe they can see the results of their efforts. People need aid now – not when it is too late.

With Mark being placed in 35th position in this year’s popular Forbes list of the richest people within the United States he has been estimated to be worth around £4.4 billion around $6.9 billion dollars!

The support group was launched earlier this year, and with names such as George Lucas the film producer and Ted Turner CNN’s founder joining the list it was amazing to see that already 40individuals or families had made The Giving Pledge showing that they were willing to be open about donations which they give. With some of our richest people in society choosing to remain anonymous when donating to charities The Giving Pledge places emphasis upon the importance of being open.

Further research has shown that when people see others giving then they are more likely to do the same. Although this is originally based within the United States it would seem that both Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are searching worldwide and trying to reach the world’s richest people in order to get them to make a pledge.

Hopefully through such things as this then we will start to see a change and a difference made to our most needing parts of society. Maybe the season of good will doesn't just happen over Christmas, maybe it is something that can happen all year round!