The outspoken media mogul Ted Turner, who ushered in the era of ten-figure gifts in 1997 when he pledged $1 billion to support United Nations\u2019 worldwide charitable projects, has died. He had suffered from the progressive brain disorder Lewy body dementia for many years. He died on Wednesday at his home in Lamont, Fla.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turner\u2019s billion-dollar pledge created the United Nations Foundation, which supports international humanitarian, economic, environmental, and other programs led by the U.N. The money also launched the Better World Fund, which supports the Better World Campaign, an effort to strengthen ties between the United States and the U.N. Turner, whose wealth came from his cable television and land holdings, paid off the pledge<\/a> in 2015. \n \n $1 Billion and 20 Years Later, What\u2019s Next for Global Aid <\/a>\n <\/p>\n\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n As Ted Turner\u2019s $1-Billion Pledge Ends, U.N. Fund Seeks New Donors <\/a>\n <\/p>\n\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n The Long View <\/a>\n <\/p>\n\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n Has the Giving Pledge Changed Giving? <\/a>\n <\/p>\n\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n \n Ted Turner Maps Out His Sphere of Influence <\/a>\n <\/p>\n\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n A billion-dollar gift from an individual donor was a rarity when Turner announced the U.N. donation nearly 30 years ago. That would soon change. In 2000, Bill Gates and his then-wife, Melinda French Gates, pledged $5 billion to their Gates Foundation, and in 2001 Gordon and Betty Moore gave $5.8 billion to their Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Other wealthy donors followed. The financier Warren Buffett pledged roughly $36 billion to the Gates Foundation in 2006, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos committed $10 billion to launch his Bezos Earth Fund in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since 2000<\/a>, two dozen donors have given single donations of $1 billion or more, according to data from the Chronicle\u2019<\/em>s Philanthropy 50<\/a> reports, with philanthropists such as Bill Gates, Buffett, and Bezos giving multiple gifts of $1 billion or more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turner had a hand in the creation of what would eventually become the Philanthropy 50<\/a> as well. In 1996, he proposed ranking the richest Americans, not by their wealth but by their giving. He said at the time that he thought it would spur more philanthropy and shame rich people who he thought were not giving enough of their wealth to help others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese new super-rich won’t loosen up their wads because they’re afraid they’ll reduce their net worth and go down on the [Forbes 400] list,\u201d Turner told the New York Times<\/a><\/em> that year. The U.N. pledge brought Turner a lot of attention, but the father of five had other charitable interests that grew out of a deep concern about the future of the planet, and he devoted large sums to environmental and conservation programs throughout his lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative<\/a>, a nonprofit that works on preventing nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare, with former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn in 2001. He pledged up to $250 million in stock over five years to back the effort but ended up giving $74 million<\/a> to the organization when the value of his AOL-Time Warner stock declined sharply in 2003.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before creating the NTI, Turner established several conservation nonprofits in the 1990s. He co-founded the Captain Planet Foundation, which works to engage children in protecting the environment, and the Turner Endangered Species Fund and Turner Biodiversity, which seek to ensure the planet\u2019s biological diversity by protecting wildlife and habitats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He launched the environmentally focused Turner Foundation with a $2.5 million donation in 1990 to support a range of environmental causes, including the protection of land and wildlife, programs aimed at boosting renewable energy practices that avoid harming wildlife, and efforts to increase diversity within the conservation movement. The foundation has given out grants totaling about $400 million since 1991.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He told the Chronicle<\/em> in 2008 that one of the reasons he started the foundation was to get his children involved<\/a> in philanthropy. All five serve on the foundation\u2019s Board of Directors, as do several of his grandchildren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turner had a difficult relationship with his own father, an alcoholic who often beat him, but he credited the man with teaching him about the importance of charitable giving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot only did he make contributions to causes that he cared about, he also supported the tuition of two African American students at his alma mater, Millsaps College, in the late 1950s,\u201d Turner wrote of his father in his Giving Pledge letter<\/a>. \u201d It made a big impression on me to see someone as hard-charging as my father take the time to quietly help out two young people like this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turner grew up well-off in Savannah, Ga. His father, Robert Edward Turner II, founded the billboard company Turner Outdoor Advertising, and his parents sent him to a private boarding school and then to Brown University, where he studied classics and economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The gregarious and brash Turner was active in university extracurriculars, serving as vice president of Brown’s debating union and as captain of the sailing team. He spent three years at Brown before he was expelled in 1959, when university officials learned he was living with a girlfriend, a violation of university policy. The university recognized his successes<\/a> as a philanthropist and businessman in 1989, awarding him with an honorary degree. The brash media mogul’s $1 billion pledge to the United Nations in 1997 helped usher in the age of the mega-donor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":363941,"featured_media":4402231489739,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"content-type":"","cop_editorial_slug":"News-DiMento-TurnerObit-0526","cop_asana_id":"1214552900530118","editorial_asana_id":"","editorial_doc_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[81925],"issue":[],"profile":[],"role":[191051],"series":[],"topic":[191086],"coauthors":[188396],"class_list":{"0":"post-4402231489713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-news","8":"role-giving","9":"topic-philanthropists","11":"has-featured-image"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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The online publication Slate started the list in 1996, and in 2000, the Chronicle<\/em> took it over, partnering with Slate in the early years. Turner continued to encourage wealthy people to give big when he signed the Giving Pledge<\/a> in 2010, the year the pledge\u2019s founders, Gates, French Gates, and Buffett, launched the effort to persuade the world\u2019s wealthiest people to commit to give at least half of their fortunes to charity either during their lifetimes or when they die.
<\/p>\n\n\n\nMultigenerational Philanthropy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Ivy League to Coast Guard to Business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
After his expulsion, Turner joined the U.S. Coast Guard. He returned home to lead the family business after his father committed suicide in 1963. He renamed the company Turner Broadcasting and in time built a substantial portfolio of cable television news and entertainment stations, including CNN \u2014 the first 24-hour cable television news network \u2014 the Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies, and the television and film production companies Castle Rock Entertainment and New Line Cinema.
Turner\u2019s wealth soared and then tumbled as the media landscape changed in the 1990s. He sold Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner for $7.3 billion in stock in 1996 and then faced losses when Time Warner merged with AOL in the early 2000s, around the time the dot-com bubble was bursting. The value of the company\u2019s stock fell, and in 2003 Turner left the company. He then turned to other ventures and continued focusing on his philanthropy.
Ted Turner will be remembered for many things: His influence on cable news with the founding of CNN, his brash manner (he was nicknamed \u201cthe Mouth of the South\u201d at one point), his many marriages (including his third, to actor Jane Fonda), and his occasional controversial comments \u2014 he once said the United States should adopt China\u2019s one-child policy<\/a>.
The nonprofit world, however, will remember him most for his billion-dollar gift establishing the United Nations Foundation and for how that donation ushered in the era of billion-dollar gifts. “Looking back, if I had to live my life over, there are things I would do differently, but the one thing I would not change is my charitable giving,\u201d Turner wrote in his Giving Pledge letter<\/a>. \u201cI’m particularly thankful for my father’s advice to set goals so high that they can’t possibly be achieved during a lifetime and to give help where help is needed most.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"