Reprint: Cultural Creative Howard Buffett Is on the Ground in Africa

This story is a reprint of our original Howard buffett story in HopeTracker. We have also housed it in Smarty Pants: Howard Buffett.

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Today’s WSJ introduces us to Howard Buffett, who is not rich by Buffett standards, if you know anything about Warren’s inheritence strategy for his children. Simply stated, Warren Buffett believes that money has a tendency to corrupt — with a tendency to make Moderns out of Cultural Creatives, if we’re not careful.

Howard Buffett teaches farmers in a Burundi cornfield. Agriculture is the main livelihood for citizens of the country, one of the world’s poorest. via WSJWhat I didn’t know until now, is that Buffett funds his three children’s charities annually with stock originally worth $50 milliion. (No estimate on the current value.) Still small by philanthropy standards, Warren’s kids can have significant impact, combing money with reputation and connections.

The WSJ article is a classic story about how Howard Buffett evolved from a Modern to a Cultural Creative. To keep my consulting science straight in this story, Howard Buffett was originally a Traditional who went to work in a Modern world of Archer Daniels-Midland.

On the ground in Africa, Buffett took photos on his business trips and couldn’t turn away from them any longer. Day by day, Cultural Creative values took precedence in his mind.

This article is a marvelous read. Again, I applaud the WSJ for being totally ‘on trend’ — much moreso than any other American newspaper — in tapping into what’s really happening to Moderns who are coming up ‘empty’ in the spiritual values department.

I now read the WSJ before the NYTimes in the am. Yes, it’s a subscription online read, but all the articles that I post are free to you. In rality, the WSJ is becoming more like a British paper every day.

With all due respect to activists and all of us ‘little people’, we need the energy, contacts and determination of people like Howard Buffett to share our values and comitments.

Without business people joining the ranks of Cultural Creatives, Hopetracker will die, along with countless millions of people around the world.

Watching an evolution of content at WSJ gives me the conviction to hold my own self accountable for walking the talk. So let us all get going. Alright, I’m off the soapbox, but this article truly inspires me. A

For more understanding about the terms used here, read Anne’s Consulting and Speaking.

Read also, Anne’s followup Aug. 2009 followup to this article: Cultural Creative Howard Buffett’s Neorealism Represents the Future of Activist Philanthropy.

Shakira & Howard Buffett: Attached at the Hip Philanthropy Bedfellows Anne