Marlene Engelhorn – by Martin Kraft, CC BY-SA 4.0 licenseMove over McKenzie Scott, there's a new philanthropic heiress in town.
This is Marlene Engelhorn, a Millennial member of one of the richest families in Austria, and the proud owner of several receipts demonstrating how she gave away her inheritance.
The heiress, whose forebearers founded the BSAF pharmaceutical company, and who would come to acquire Boehringer Mannheim, allowed 50 members of the Austrian public to determine how her money would be divided and donated—to various charitable and non-profit organizations.
Her €25 million share of the family's $4.2 billion fortune was portioned out to 77 such groups by 50 randomly chosen citizens of Salzburg, who formed a working group that met over the course of 6 weeks to make the determination.
Designated the Good Council for Redistribution, the members, selected at random from a pool of 10,000 people, were offered “a series of lectures including from philosophers and economics professors to inspire their choices,” Euro News reports.
Once the committee was formed, Englehorn withdrew entirely from the process.
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Among the recipients, the two largest were the Austrian Nature Conservation Association and Nuenerhaus, (a homeless assistance org) which were each awarded more than $1.5 million
Two political think tanks, the Momentum Institute and Attac Austria, were also awarded €1 million.
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€300,000 was donated to the Autonomous Austrian Women's Shelters, and €100,400 went to the nature restoration charity the Común Foundation, for further examples.
Austria is one of the only countries in Europe that doesn't have an inheritance tax law on the books, so Englehorn is a passionate advocate for the ultra-wealthy of the country to give away as much as they can.
SHARE This Woman Putting Her Money Where Her Mouth Is…
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