Giving Pledge for America's Not-Yet Billionaires? A Call Out to Young Entrepreneurs

[Ed. Note. We're thrilled to brass MEDIA founder Bryan Sims share the story of his very own "Giving Pledge."]

When I was a kid I used to read stories about people like Bill Gates, Michael Dell and Steve Jobs. People who were first time entrepreneurs and started off like everyday people just like you and I. One of my particularly favorite things to learn about them was what they did for their first job.

My first job started at 15 while in high school at the local athletic club. I did maintenance and janitorial work, cleaning work-out equipment and scrubbing toilets in the locker room.

I first began investing as a teenager, taking my janitor’s paychecks and putting them in the stock market. Later in school I decided to create a teen investment club as part of a business class project so my friends and I could all invest together.

It was here that I learned two very important lessons:

1. The power of time and compound interest when it comes to money.
2. The power of a having many people involved in a project.

As 16 year olds investing in the stock market, we had one major advantage going for us, and that was time. Upon graduation and the disbanding of the investment club, many of participants took their money out and immediately reinvested into retirement accounts. In all likelihood, if they stick with it, they’ll be millionaires by the time they retire because they began so early.

The second piece I learned was the value of multiple perspectives. Statistically speaking, investment clubs with both men and women perform better than those with just men or just women. By getting a group of people together who shared a similar interest, we were able to benefit the group as a whole.

It’s because of these two philosophies that I’ve become a big believer in the Giving Pledge recently administered by over 40 billionaires and led by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. It takes these two concepts of people who have built wealth over time, and combines it with a critical mass of people to have a compounded effect for a greater good.

I have always known I would donate the majority of my wealth when I died, I just never thought to tell anyone else about it. My whole philosophy was to build as much value and solve as many problems over my lifetime as I could, and then give it back through a number of outlets. Little did I know there were other entrepreneurs out there like Ryan Allis, thinking the exact same thing I was.

A funny story about Ryan and I. We actually have known each other since we were teenagers. I proofed his book long before iContact had gone mainstream, and Ryan had participated in writing for brass MAGAZINE before we barely existed. Five years later, our companies both made the Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing private companies in the country. We were 25 at the time.

Two years later this month, I made the decision that I would be participating in my own form of the Giving Pledge. While I’m not a billionaire and am certainly not retired, I decided there was nothing stopping me from making the commitment and putting it out there, while also encouraging others to do the same. I sent an email to Ryan encouraging him to make the pledge also. Turns out, he already had. We both made the same determination independently from one another that when we die, we are going to donate the majority of our wealth to charity.

This was a remarkable concept to me, that two people, on opposite sides of the country could have the exact same thinking. What if this were a concept we could get other entrepreneurs to take hold of? Better yet, why stop at entrepreneurs, why not have anyone make the same pledge? At the end of your life, half of what’s left over gets passed on to the next generation.

I learned from the investment clubs that if you let something compound over time while getting a critical mass of people together, great things can happen. Today, we all have time and so I need your help with spreading the word so people can get involved. It’s at this intersection of time and engaged people where we can fundamentally change people’s philosophy on giving so it is just accepted that you commit to the giving pledge and return half of what’s left.

And thus, the reason for my post. I would encourage you to make the same pledge Ryan and I have made and pass it on to others.

If you decide to make the pledge, please send me a message @bryansims on Twitter or via email at givingpledge@brassmedia.com so I can pass your story along to encourage others.

Photo credit: mikebaird