Among the fabulouslyrich heirsin the room, everyone’s “wealth shadow” looks different.
For some, it takes the form of an X as they hold their forearms across their faces.
Others curl up on the floor with their heads in their hands.
And they don’t want it.
“That was really jarring because I had been involved in climate justice and fossil-fuel divestment.
Like: Oh, my family’s been profiting off the companies I’ve been targeting.”
That’s where Making Money Make Change comes in.
For the members of RG, as they call it, sharing their wealth isn’t about wokeness.
It’s about responsibility.
They want to use their wealth not for their own profit and pleasure but to enrich and empower others.
But the process of divestiture comes with a host of personal and financial challenges.
As their families grew richer, much of the rest of America was becoming poorer.
Such realizations left the heirs with a mix of emotions: confusion, guilt, shame, resentment.
“And I was like, ‘They’re the bad guys.We’rethe bad guys.'”
The heirs at Making Money Make Change don’t look like bad guys.
The reading of the survey, I was warned, is the “heaviest” part of the weekend.
As the survey is read, almost every statistic is met with somber silence.
In everyday life, many young wealth inheritors can get stuck in what RG calls “freeze” mode.
They try not to think about their money.
“I was just like, this is really embarrassing,” she says.
“Somebody is trying to offer me this aid, and somebody else could use this.”
I ask what her parents think of her decision.
“It’s complicated,” she says.
“I was being trained as an organizer.
The conference also helps the wealthy redefinewhat being rich means.
But once he became a lawyer, she says, their circumstances “shifted significantly.”
“My parents still talk about themselves as being poor,” Middlebrooks says.
“And it’s like, have you seen your house?
You are not poor.”
“The trustees are like, ‘What about your children’s children?'”
Meg recalls being asked.
“And we’re like, ‘What about everybody else’s children?'”
What’s more, the personal-finance industry is predicated on building wealth, not getting rid of it.
Now she’s overwhelmed by the demand for her services.
“I imagine that’s the case for a lot of my peers.”
Giving away your money also comes with another challenge: having less money.
“My relationship to money changed a lot when I got cancer,” Ash tells me.
“I had to learn how to receive care.”
The rest came down to the generosity of friends who offered rides, brought food, and provided comfort.
By the end of the conference, 35 heirs have pledged to redistribute a total of $9.2 million.
“It was incredibly isolating,” a woman in her late 20s says of receiving her inheritance.
“It led to challenges of: Who am I?
How do I fit in?
How can I be authentically myself?”
Like, you already knew that, but, like,even richer,'” Sarah says.
At a certain point, however, it isn’t about the doing.
That can lead to new feelings of being the odd one out.
“There’s a quiet coldness when I talk about the work that I do.”
“I was like, ‘Yeah, pretty much,'” Ash recalls.
This time, however, the money no longer carried any guilt.
Instead, Ash is just happy to have more to give.
The money, they say, is the easy part.
Everyone, Ash says, has an inheritance to contribute.
“I don’t qualify as done,” Ash says.
“I don’t know if anyone ever is.”
