My Family Came Into $38 Million, So Now What?
- stephaniewilson
- 7 days ago
- 4 min read
You won’t believe me when I tell you this, but last week my sister texted us siblings that she’d just won $38 million. She included a photo of her hand holding the ticket. I lay in my bed, having just woken up, stunned. What on earth? I looked online, and indeed the number on her ticket was the winning number. The pot stood at $38 mill. My mind halted. This is insane. I texted her back.
This is crazy!! I checked the number online, and, yes, that is the winning number! O. M. G.
I picked up the phone and called. I had to hear her voice. She answered.
“Can you even believe it?” I said.
“Not at all. It’s nuts.”
She went on for a short while about matters any newly minted multi-millionaire ponders, until she said, “Of course, it couldn’t have happened on a more perfect day.”
Now, the reason I opened this story with, “You won’t believe me when I tell you this,” is because I trust that you are smarter than me. You already intuit there will be at least a scrap of sorry bloggers out there this week talking about the April Fool’s jokes that nabbed them last week. This is one.
I paused on the phone, then burst out laughing. So did she, quite a bit.
She got me good.
But then we continued with the conversation. I told her about the stress I visualize after winning a big lottery pot, which will never happen because I don’t play the lottery.
“For me,” I told her, “I grapple with how I’ll give out the money, because obviously I can’t keep all that myself. How far down the list of the people in my life do I go? How do I determine who gets what? How do I decide the amount each tier of importance to me gets? How do I determine the definition of importance? And who goes in which tier and why? It’s a lot. I’m so glad I’m not stupid rich.”
She agreed. Then, the idea of winning a ridiculous amount of money did not launch us into a discussion on where we’d buy an island or how large a mega yacht we’d need. It launched us into the types of charities we’d contribute to. There are many, and they reach all kinds of needs. We mused on this for a little while, then hung up, me wishing her the best with her new wealth, her feeling rather fulfilled with her prank, I imagine.
I went for a walk shortly after and thought on this idea. What would it feel like to significantly help fund those who are hurting or issues that need addressing? I think of the philanthropic efforts of the ultra-rich, some far more generous in terms of net wealth than others. You can see from a list in Forbes of the top givers in the US that MacKenzie Scott stands out in terms of percentage of wealth given, and she’s done it in a swoosh of seven years. She’s my new idol.
I get that it must be an odd experience for which you could never prepare when you become world-class wealthy. There must be such an extreme sense of identity wrapped up in the status of your wealth — not just nationally, but globally — that to let that go must seem like you’re giving away both your influence and yourself. It’s no longer about the money.
The money is about something else. That money = you.
On the other hand, I’ve also read discussions on why holding onto wealth to help fund businesses that could change the world for the better is a reasonable use of the money for good. Fair.
To me, coming into a much more manageable sum — $38 million — would be easier to consider giving away. I could wrap my mind around those numbers. It wouldn’t take much time to get rid of roughly half of it — half an hour, tops — because, for me, much would go to family and friends. The other half takes more thought about what I’d do with it. This is where I began my contemplation on my walk. What do I care about most? Or what would I care about if I knew there was a need out there for it?
I noticed in the Forbes article that some of the main areas of giving included climate change, global health, poverty alleviation, education, and human rights. I’m drawn to all of these. Educational access has been something I think about sometimes.
Education can change so much about a person’s life, the community, and the world. The more you know, the better you think — both deeper and broader — and the more options you have for your future. Ignorance can be the fuel for societal instability. Education leads to less poverty and, in turn, a better ability to help the community.
Another thing I care about is climate change, of course. But I’m not sure my relatively small contribution would make much of a difference. Yet, on the other hand, most any other need I’d give to would be far less severe in the future if climate change were less of a force than more. Whatever upends society will upend the bottom more than the top.
Finally, I’m always drawn to poverty as a need, and most of my charitable giving goes there. My charitable efforts have gone here, too. My latest ongoing effort involves a monthly stint at a foster care support organization an hour from my house. They put together backpacks with various necessities for foster children. Each one is set up age/gender specific. The minute the homeless child walks through the foster care office door to ready themselves for transfer to a foster family, they receive this backpack.
It has all kinds of things they might need — toiletries, pajamas, bibs for a baby, socks. It also includes, depending on age, a stuffed animal, puzzle book, reading book, and a cozy blanket, which hopefully bring them a little joy in their moment of utter fear and confusion.
If you volunteer at a place like this, you know in your heart, even if you never knew this before, that you’d never keep $38 million all for yourself. It would make me sleepless. It would disconnect me from the world. I could never allow a win like so much money to cut a loss in me like that. The opposite plan — giving it away — would build me for the rest of my life.
And that’s no April Fool’s.
Be well, friends.
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