Howard Warren Buffett wants philanthropy managed like an investment portfolio
Warren Buffett's grandson Howard Warren Buffett argues that nonprofits should be lined up systematically against social needs, an idea he calls social value investing. He set it out in a 2018 book from Columbia University Press, drawing on work at the White House, the Pentagon and his family's foundation.
Born on October 14, 1983, he grew up in Omaha, then moved to Decatur, Illinois, where he led his high school's chapter of the National FFA Organization. He earned a political science and communication degree at Northwestern University in 2006, serving as student body vice president, and a Master of Public Administration from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs in 2008. Unlike his Republican father, he is associated with the Democratic Party.
In 2009 he joined the Department of Agriculture as a special assistant, managing the national expansion plan for its $480 million Cooperative Extension Service. He then moved to the White House as a policy adviser handling cross-sector partnerships, and in May 2010 organised an Energy Innovation Conference at which the Energy Department and the Small Business Administration announced a $60 million clean energy fund for small firms. Later, at a Defense Department task force, he designed agricultural development strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq.
He has served as executive director of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which works to improve life for the world's poorest people. He is also a director of the Learning by Giving Foundation set up by his great-aunt Doris Buffett, a charity that he describes as a first step toward putting his model into practice, joined Toyota Motor North America's advisory board in 2010, and in 2023 began advising a new index of countries' food trade vulnerability.
Since 2013 he has taught at Columbia, where he is an adjunct professor covering philanthropy, social value investing and management innovation. He chairs the advisory board of Harvard's International Negotiation Program, runs a 160-hectare no-till farm near Tekamah, Nebraska, and has had photographs published by National Geographic. He met his wife, Lili, at an agricultural conference.
Source: Howard Warren Buffett
