chuck feeney

Billionaire Plans $100 Vouchers To Tempt Tourists To Ireland

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels, Big Givers

Billionaire Chuck Feeney has spread his philanthropy around the world as far as Australia and his latest plan is to help boost Irish tourism. The Irish-American philanthropist is working on a plan to give $100 vouchers to American tourists who visit Ireland. According to the London Times, tourism minister Martin Cullen said that Feeney got in touch with him after the Global Irish Economic Forum in Farmleigh, where business people got together to discuss the economy.

Feeney made his money through duty free products and in 1982 he set up Atlantic Philanthropies, which gives money to initiatives in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, as well as other places. Ireland's tourism industry slipped along with the rest of the world in 2009, falling by 12 percent. The vouchers which have a total value of up to $5 million, would be used for discount flights and hotel stays and could boost tourism numbers by 50,000.

Tags: atlantic philanthropies, AtlanticPhilanthropies, billionaire, chuck feeney, ChuckFeeney, ireland, tourism

American Philanthropist Makes Big Donation In Australia

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Big Givers

Billionaire Chuck Feeney is in the news again with another big donation. He has pledged more than $100 million Australian to the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Queensland, Australia. The money will be used to help fund three major new research institutes and hopefully attract more top scientists to Brisbane. Feeney's Atlantic Philanthropies has donated more than $270 million to Queensland scientific and medical research over the past decade.

Why would and Irish-American philanthropist be giving away big money in Australia? Feeney is quoted in Australia's Courier Mail as saying that when he visited Queensland he found a "lot of people worthy of support and not getting it and I was pleased to help." He is hoping that the work he funds in Queensland can improve health around the globe. Projects said to be on tap include researching breast cancer susceptibility genes and the genetic risk of schizophrenia, as well as funding clinical trials of a new malaria vaccine. Ian Frazer, the inventor of the cervical cancer vaccine, is behind the Translational Research Institute at Princess Alexandra Hospital, one of the institutes that Feeney is funding and the amount of scientists in the area has been on the rise. Frazer is currently at work on a skin cancer vaccine.

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Tags: australia, billionaire, chuck feeney, ChuckFeeney, donations, ian frazer, IanFrazer, queensland

More Big Donors Giving Anonymously

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Charity

Being rich isn't always about being famous, in fact many wealthy individuals go to great lengths to keep out of the spotlight -- even when it comes to being recognized for generous gifts to charity. Recently I posted on billionaire Chuck Feeney and his anonymous "giving while living" motto, but he's not the only one out there that wants to give money away without being recognized -- as one donor put it "I don't want to walk into the coffee shop and have strangers come up and talk to me about this gift."

The reasons why this trend is growing vary wildly, sometimes it's a simple matter of safety and privacy and sometimes it's about family politics -- they don't want all their relatives knowing how much they really have. Anonymous giving is generally a good thing, I think. After all, it's about the charities, not the donors who keep them going.

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Tags: anonymous, anonymously, billionaire, billionaires, charities, charity, chuck feeney, ChuckFeeney, donor, donors, feeney

Quiet Billionaire's Generous Plans

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Charity

"Giving while living" is one of the mottos that the very wealthy Chuck Feeney lives by, along with "not tooting his own horn" -- which means that although he gives boatloads of money away as many billionaires do he's different in that he pretty much always does it anonymously and/or goes to great lengths to make sure he doesn't get acknowledged in any way for his generosity.

His current plans are what's getting him into the news (much to his dismay, I'm sure) as he plans to give away $8 billion by the year 2016, mostly through the foundation Atlanta Philanthropies that he started back in 1984. He says there's no point in holding onto all that money and that he's "not going to die until he can spend it."

Good luck Mr Feeney!

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Tags: atlanta philanthropies, AtlantaPhilanthropies, billionaire, charity, chuck feeney, ChuckFeeney, feeney