KINGSTON, N.Y. — A charitable foundation controlled by Peter Buffett and his wife has doled out more than $116 million to Ulster County and regional non-profit organizations, activist groups, school districts, a holistic healing center, farm programs, food pantries, and governments from 2017 to 2019, according to tax records.
Buffett, the youngest son of multi-billionaire investor Warren Buffett, purchased the former Gill Farm in Hurley in 2013 and is now a Lomontville, Ulster County, resident. He posted a “Letter to the Kingston Community” on June 7 to the blogging site Medium, describing the NoVo Foundation’s mission and its philosophical underpinnings.
The foundation was established 15 years ago with a $1 billion stock donation made by Warren Buffett, whose net worth was most recently estimated by Forbes Magazine to be $103 billion.
The younger Buffett said he decided to share his feelings in the Kingston letter and participate in an email exchange with a Freeman reporter in order to air NoVo’s intentions.
“I am aware of the impact NoVo’s presence can have on the community,” Buffett wrote in an email. “My first instinct was to stay more in the background and let the work of our partners speak for itself.”
“As our levels of support grew, though, it became clear that we had a responsibility to the community to better articulate our intentions and approach,” Buffett added. “There’s a challenge here, because we know, with all the forces of gentrification already bearing down on Kingston, making ourselves too prominent could draw even more attention.”
But that changed.
“Ultimately I believe that being in true community means being open with each other, sharing our stories, and trusting that we will figure it out together,” Buffett said.
Buffett, who is a father of two, said NoVo was founded with a pledge from his father.
“In 2006, my father made a pledge to return nearly all of his wealth back to society,” Buffett wrote in his Letter to the Kingston Community.
“It was a pledge of one billion dollars worth of stock at the time of the pledge (June 26th, 2005),” Buffett wrote in his email. “My siblings and I were told three months prior to that announcement. Obviously, it changed my life. He increased the amount a few years later. NoVo gets 5% of that pledge every year (which diminishes over time).”
“It fluctuates with the stock market every year,” Buffett said. “So it’s impossible to calculate ahead of time but over NoVo’s lifetime it has ranged from $50 million to over $150 million.”
NoVo — in some cases through The Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley and the Tides Foundation — has donated at least $116 million to charitable groups, activists, and governments between 2017 and 2019, the latest tax records indicate.
The largest portion — more than $50 million — was given to the Hudson Valley Farm Hub, which Buffett said NoVo helped establish at the Gill Farm property.
“In 2013 … NoVo purchased the Gill Farm in Hurley and supported the creation of a not-for-profit farm dedicated to resilience in the food system (during the pandemic, the Farm Hub donated well over 300,000 pounds of produce to the community),” Buffett wrote.
Other groups or agencies receiving funding from 2017 to 2019 are: Radio Kingston, $19.3 million; YMCA of Kingston and Ulster County, $5.45 million; Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, $4.51 million; United Way of Ulster County, $1.5 million and Bard College, $2 million.
Other giving went to: Family of Woodstock, $1.58 million; Good Work Institute in Kingston, $1.05 million; Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center Inc. in Kingston, $750,000; United Way of Ulster County Emergency and Homelessness Prevention, $750,000; Hudson Valley Current Inc., $850,000; Rise-Up Kingston, $600,000; Center for Creative Learning, $540,000; and People’s Place thrift store/food pantry in Kingston, $400,000.
Other NoVo donations went to the Kingston School District, Kingston’s Live Well program, Kingston’s Everett Hodge Midtown Community Center, Kingston Land Trust, Scenic Hudson, an environmental group, Transart, a group building an African American history om Midtown Kingston, Stockade Works, and the Woodstock Film Festival.
Project Resilience and Universal Basic Income pilot program
Buffett also said in an email that NoVo is a funder of Ulster County’s Project Resilience program and the Universal Basic Income initiative. The county announced the Project Resilience program at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in March of 2020, citing a $2 million donation from an anonymous individual.
“NoVo is a funder of Project Resilience which, like much of what we do, was given in the spirit of trust,” Buffett said. “We are in an incredibly turbulent time. The County was able to reallocate those funds easily during the pandemic.”
The Universal Basic Income pilot program, announced by Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan during his State of the County address in February, is providing 100 low-income county residents with a one-year stipend of $6,000, to be paid out in 12 monthly installments of $500. The program is intended to both help those most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and to study the effects of a guaranteed basic income on people’s lives. The first checks were sent in May.
“UBI is an idea that has been and continues to be tested throughout the country,” Buffett said.
Buffett said intention means much.
“I believe intention is everything,” Buffett wrote in his letter. “NoVo’s intention is to work with and support people and organizations who are passionate about helping Kingston become a radically more self-reliant, equitable and ecologically restorative community.”
Buffett explained further.
“Our work has evolved into support for over 60 people and organizations in the city and many more across the region,” Buffett wrote in his public letter to Kingston. “The work they all do is as varied as it is impressive, affecting all aspects of life from food to housing to healthcare to education to art & culture to the way we produce and exchange the goods and services we all need, to the energy we use to do all of the above. We are deeply honored to be in partnership with them all.
“And our focus, as from the first day the foundation was created, is on those most historically and continually marginalized,” Buffett added.
In some ways, Buffett said NoVo’s effort will combat gentrification.
“Gentrification is an urgent issue; it would be a tragic and deep injustice if this community was changed beyond recognition by the forces at large that are driving up housing costs and prices and driving down affordability and availability,” Buffett wrote. “Our challenge has been how to support meaningful change in a particular neighborhood without those changes inadvertently contributing to those forces driving out the very people who were meant to benefit.”
NoVo, Buffett said, will not be around forever.
“NoVo is not an in-perpetuity Foundation — we will not exist forever,” Buffett wrote. “We are deeply committed to this community and this work, though, and so although we cannot be here indefinitely, we are committing to at least another decade.”
“By 2031, the world will look very different than it does now; just think back 10 years and all the change that has happened in your life,” Buffett added. “The sorts of questions we have for ourselves, our partners, and Kingston as a whole are: where along this path to self-reliance, equity and ecological restoration do we want to be by then? What new systems or institutions need to emerge to make that possible and which can be left to the past? And what do we need to do to make sure that any reliance on NoVo is distributed or made sustainable by then?”
Buffett said that NoVo does want to transform Kingston.
“Kingston as a community is unique, but Kingston as a small city in America is not,” Buffett said. “NoVo’s work to build new systems for community self-reliance extends far beyond Kingston — we support nearly a thousand partners across the country and the world, so we can learn from others and be an inspiration as well.”
“I believe we are living in an historically significant time,” Buffett added. “No one can predict the future. But we can participate in imagining it. Unfortunately, imagination itself has become a luxury. But kids still have it. And stability, safety and trust can nurture it.”
“My hope is that NoVo, through its many partners, can help foster a transformation towards the beloved community that we know is possible,” Buffett wrote.
In his email, Buffett said he has grown used to managing requests for funding.
“Since 2006, I’ve slowly learned how to ‘manage’ requests as well as the projections that come along with being my father’s son,” Buffett wrote. “Most of my adult life was in the music business and people thought I was related to Jimmy Buffett. My father’s success had no direct influence on me. I’m certainly not complaining! There’s a lot of need in the world,” Buffett said. “And people look for help where they hope to find it.”
Personally, Buffett said, he is ready for the next 10 years.
“The work here is deeply personal to me,” Buffett said in the email. “But I am not the center of the work. It’s the society we live in, I think, that wants to make it about personalities, in this case me and the power I hold.”
“I don’t come from that framework, Buffett added. “I don’t come from some dynastic version of wealth. I grew up in Omaha in the house my Dad still lives in (where he’s driven 6 days a week to the same office he’s had since 1963). I went to public school, dropped out of college and made a living writing and producing music.”
“All the while, I had seen civil rights in the 60’s up close, worked within the Indigenous story of America through my music career, and found myself later in life able to bring resources to what I believe to be fundamentally true – we will only survive as a species if we bring ourselves back into right relation with each other and the land we live on,” Buffett wrote.
Senior Editor Ivan Lajara contributed to this report.
