The Glide Foundation, a California-based homeless charity, has long been supported by investors seeking private lunches with billionaire Warren Buffett, amassing $53 million over the years. However, with Buffett’s departure from the lunch auctions, the charity has found a new business executive to auction off a meal with.
On Tuesday, the Glide Foundation announced that it would hold an auction on eBay next month for a private lunch with Salesforce Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff. Based in San Francisco, Glide Foundation assists the homeless and impoverished individuals, coincidentally in the same city where Benioff oversees his software empire.
While Buffett’s last lunch auction two years ago fetched a record $19 million, Glide hopes that the Benioff auction will also raise significant funds to support its $31 million budget, providing essential services such as meals, healthcare, job training, rehabilitation, and housing for those in need.
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Dr. Gina M. Fromer, Glide’s President and CEO, expressed gratitude towards Marc Benioff for continuing Warren Buffett’s legacy of supporting San Francisco’s most vulnerable.
Buffett, whose late first wife Susie initially introduced him to Glide, endorsed the new arrangement from his office at Berkshire’s headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. Benioff, known for his advocacy on various social issues, including homelessness, gay rights, climate change, and gun control, expressed humility in continuing Buffett’s legacy with the lunch auction.
Similar to the Buffett auctions, the Benioff lunch auction will commence on May 5 with an opening bid of $25,000 and run through May 10. While organizers aim to match Buffett’s record-breaking bids, which consistently surpassed $1 million starting from 2008, the task may prove challenging.
Notably, a past auction winner, Ted Weschler, secured a job offer from Buffett’s company after spending nearly $5.3 million on two auctions in 2010 and 2011. Weschler now serves as an investment manager for Berkshire Hathaway.
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