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Philanthropist Doris Buffett touts education at Colby

By Scott Monroe smonroe@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

WATERVILLE — Whether it’s helping prison inmates find redemption, assisting battered women in recovery and the poor in prospering, or giving children a chance to realize their potential, there’s a common solution: education.

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ABOUT GRANTS: Philanthropist Doris Buffett, right, speaks with professor Sandy Maisel during the Nonprofit Leadership Institute dinner Tuesday night at Colby College. At left is William "Bro" Adams, president of Colby.

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And for philanthropist Doris Buffett, enabling those educational opportunities for the people and organizations who can make the most of them is worth as much money as it takes.

It’s the cause of her life, Buffett said during a talk Wednesday night at Colby College.

“It really pays to give them a boost when they need it,” Buffett said, “and that’s my legacy. I’m very comfortable with it. Education is absolutely number one.”

Buffett, 82, of Fredericksburg, Va., and Rockport, is the older sister of legendary businessman Warren Buffett. She recounted — jokingly yet truthfully — that a man once wrote a letter to her brother after learning that he had recovered from colon cancer.

“‘We need you in this world,’” she quoted the letter saying, “‘but you should be doing what your sister is doing.’ Which I love.”

Buffett’s talk came as part of a two-day “nonprofit leadership institute” hosted by Colby and the Maine Association of Nonprofits, addressing the theme of “reshaping the sector for social change.”

For Buffett, it took time to discover how best to effect meaningful change. She has done that by founding The Sunshine Lady Foundation, which has awarded more than $100 million in grants. Her most recent project is the Educare Central Maine facility, an early childhood education program under construction beside the George J. Mitchell School in Waterville.

A new biography on her by author Michael Zitz, “Giving It All Away: The Doris Buffett Story,” is scheduled to be released in May.

Buffett said the family foundation epitomizes her personal approach to doing good deeds. “I’m a retail philanthropist and I love the job,” she said. “It’s the hardest work I’ve ever done in my life.”

It’s “retail” because Buffett personally involves herself in the process of meeting prospective grant recipients and seeking out people and causes worthy of assistance. Through that work, Buffett said she has come to cherish educational assistance because it can help lift people up and “it’s clear to us you can’t rise from one economic class to the next unless you know what you’re doing.”

Buffett recounted several instances in which her faith in those investments was realized. One grant recipient was a woman in Mississippi who helped a battered woman without a high school diploma gain the confidence to earn a General Educational Development diploma, bachelor’s degree and, finally, a doctorate. The grant recipient herself recently graduated from the Wharton School of Finance, she said.

That effort has led to the foundation’s Women’s Independence Scholarship Program, which has provided grants to more than 1,000 women to attend college.

Buffett also described her visits to prisons, where she has seen how education can offer inmates another chance — even if they may never leave prison.

“The point is, there is redemption in prison and it comes through education,” she said.

But equally important is providing education to children when they are young and giving them hope — especially if they grow up impoverished and involved with gangs or drugs. Educare is an example of that effort, giving those children the chance they need to develop their intellect and become valuable members of society, she said.

Above all, “I took everything as an investment,” she said of her foundation’s grants, noting she requires high standards for the recipients.

“I don’t do ‘SOBs’ — that’s symphony, opera and ballet.”

Scott Monroe — 861-9253

smonroe@centralmaine.com