Idealist's new job: Give away $1 billion; Ted Turner picked a former Colorado senator to funnel $100 million each year
to several worthy U.N. causes
Copyright 1998 The Orlando Sentinel
August 2, 1998
WASHINGTON - Timothy Wirth says he is trying to save the world, and he may
actually have the money to do it.
The former Colorado senator was tapped last fall by Ted Turner to carry out a
task no one ever expects to be handed: Decide how best to spend someone else's
$1
billion - and then spend it. The only restriction is that the cash must help
attack some of the world's daunting afflictions, such as overpopulation and
disease.
When Turner, the media guru who founded CNN and who is a vice chairman of Time
Warner Inc., announced in September that he was dedicating the money to a
variety of U.N. causes, skeptics labeled him impulsive, quixotic, even
downright loony.
To Wirth, however, it represented an irresistible opportunity to
put words into action. And since then, Wirth, Turner's longtime friend and
fellow visionary, has been working feverishly.
"They say, 'You're nuts giving a billion dollars,"' Wirth says in his Dupont Circle office.
"Well, Ted Turner wears his heart on his sleeve. He's a great idealist. He
just wanted to do it, and we're going to try and make it happen."
Wirth has enlisted a staff that will grow to about 30, has opened offices in
Washington and New York and is leading the United Nations Foundation that
Turner created to designate U.N. programs to receive funding.
In
May, eight months after Turner's announcement, the first donation, of $22
million, went out to a variety of programs, including one to aid reproductive
health in Bolivia, and another to fight childhood vitamin deficiency in
Nigeria. Plans are to disburse money at a rate of $100 million a year; the next announcement is scheduled for September.
Wirth and his wife, Wren Winslow, head of her family's Winslow Foundation,
which donates money for environmental causes, went to dinner with their
longtime friends, Turner and wife Jane Fonda, last fall. During the meal,
Turner
offered Wirth the job.
It has been a rocky but rewarding road so far, Wirth says, rubbing bloodshot
eyes. When you are sitting on a billion bucks, one of the great challenges is
trying to funnel money where it will mean the most, while saying
"no" - with a
smile and an explanation - to the majority of requesters.
The bulk of the first $22 million went to programs that seek to stall
population growth and promote the health of women and children. The first
installment was reflective of the foundation's decision to concentrate on three
areas -
climate change, reproductive health and education among adolescent
girls and the eradication of childhood disease.
Wirth said the foundation's eight-member board decided to focus on issues that
are difficult for governments themselves to attend to, preventive in nature and
sustainable.
"We are not going to do peacekeeping; we're not going to do massive feeding
programs; we're not going to do
refugee programs," Wirth says.
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