Adopt a Billionaire Now
How it works:
Choose your billionaire
Find your perfect billionaire match.
Adopt them
Make the commitment to help your chosen person.
Research them
Find out what they like and hate, what motivated them...
Write to them
Most billionaires had a tricky start in life which causes them to behave the way they do. Let them know that it doesn't have to be this way.
Spread the word
And look at the difference they can make to the world as they remember that they can love and be loved.
Sources of information
Despite the wariness of exposure to the general public of most billionaires, there are certain media platforms on which they are only too happy to appear.
If one has a superyacht and holds massive jamborees for friends and family, it is only too reasonable to expect some publicity to demonstrate to similarly privileged acquaintances that one belong in their circle.
Many glossy magazines, targeted at an ultra-rich readership including Tatler and the Financial Times-owned HTSI (demurely renamed from How to Spend It) and Vogue are packed with photographs of well-dressed men and their glamorous partners dining at posh locations, watching sporting events and smooching with celebrities in their enormous boats. Many less well-known publications - WealthWatch Magazine, The Luxury Report, Spear's Magazine, and Luxury Life Magazine UK, among others. Have a story or two in each edition about one money-bag or another but also cover more niche topics of interest to the ultra-wealthy such as high-end travel and servant recruitment.
Forbes and the Sunday Times magazine go one better and produce well-researched lists of billionaires complete with mini-biography including how they came about their riches.
Needless to say, high subscription prices and the obtuse subject-matter of their articles, ensure that they are seldom scanned by the hoi polloi.
Apart from these sources, simple searches on the internet usually offer surprisingly detailed information not only about the background of billionaires but also up to date stories when they pop up in the news and the contact details of their businesses and investment vehicles.
Write to your adoptee
In your correspondence with your adoptee it is of the utmost importance to be polite and to ask only reasonable questions.
You will need to do some research in order to ask the right questions.
It is more than likely that you will receive no reply at all to your letter or you might receive some rebuttal from one of their representatives telling you that you’re assertion that they should change their ways for their own good, or that there is no such thing as dangerous climate-change, or that they do great good in the world and deserve their fortunes.
Whatever the outcome, the objective of the campaign is the publicising of the response.
Model letter
A V G Pearson (Concerned Citizen)
c/o Adopt a Billionaire Campaign
London, UK
[Your Contact Info/Date Here]
Jasper Cashbags
10 Nabob Gardens
London NW3
Dear Mr Cashbags,
RE: ADOPT A BILLIONAIRE
We are delighted to invite you to participate in a new international project – Adopt a Billionaire.
The objective of the project is no less than to save the world from climatic catastrophe.
It has been determined that the very wealthiest citizens of the world, including yourself, are, at present, most responsible for allowing man-made emissions of greenhouse gases to bring about unsustainable global warming.
We are sure that you are aware that climate change is already causing untold misery and that the problem will get much worse in the very near future with whole populations being forced to migrate from lands made barren by drought. Massive conflict is likely to occur over competing access to vital resources. Food prices will rocket causing widespread civil unrest and causing untold levels of disease, death and destruction. Changes in the climate will accelerate already unacceptable loss of animal and plant species and the widespread bleaching of coral reefs.
Most billionaires seem to be unaware that they, like the rest of us, have no planet B to go to where they would be unaffected by this disaster. Their ownership of much of the climate-change-denying media and think tanks, their financial contributions to politicians and political parties that deny the facts of climate change and their extremely wasteful private habits which cause the greenhouse gasses of many thousands of times the average person’s carbon emissions has landed them with the greatest responsibility for the impending disaster but also the greatest opportunity to receive the respect and gratitude of all the world’s population by using their monetary and political power to reverse the cause of the problem.
We note that you are the owner of ‘Fat cat’ the 350ft super-yacht. You also own an airliner and have bought several unnecessarily large houses, including in Nabob Gardens and in Antibes, Orlando and Cape Town. Your main business is one of the greatest polluting industries on Earth and you deal in billions of dollars- worth of fossil fuels.
As our adoptee in this campaign, we would ask you to desist from this kind of irresponsible activity and to live a life more in keeping with an assurance of a sustainable planet for yourself and your family. As an egregious member of the ‘consumer society’ you set a poor example for the rest of us to follow.
We would be most grateful if you could take a lead and let us know your own emissions cutting target.
If all your fellow billionaires were to follow what we hope will be your example, we believe that our environmental problems would be brought under control.
We look forward to entering into much more detailed dialog with you in the future. We are, for instance, very interested to learn how you respond to our request.
Signed,
Alison Pearson
Spread the Word
Have you written to your adopted billionaire? We'd love to hear about it! Please email us at [email protected] to let us know you've reached out. Sharing any responses you receive (or noting the lack thereof) helps us understand the impact and develop the campaign further. Your feedback is crucial!