Trusts for the kids. Set up so that the trust can pay education / living / health expenses if the kid is unable to support himself / herself. Basic stuff - a Hyundai, not a Lexus; a basic apartment, or whatever. Not to be used for luxuries (travel etc.). Maybe a clause where the kid can borrow a house down payment, or some other clause where it gives them fun money to match some of what they earned - to give them incentives too work for a living. Say, a Lexus costs 50,000; if you put up 40,000 here’s 10,000.
As much as possible, set the trusts up to provide the same for potential grandchildren (I know there are limits on how long a trust works for).
Then, donate the rest. There are several charities I’d love to surprise.
If I become a billionaire, all of the people who I would be interested in giving money to would already have it. No, that does not include all of my relatives (not even close), nor would it include friends and acquaintances.
Almost all of it would be given to various charitable funds.
Although if I knew I was dying and had some time, I might start making a list of a couple of thousand people from various sources that are not rich or well off and give them $15,000 each (the current gift tax exclusion). Doing that for 10,000 people would be $150 million, assuming that I could manage to make such a large list.
But before I died, I’d have long been doing things like buying and cancelling medical debt, paying off medical debts and student loans for people who show themselves to be good people, etc.
There isn’t any part of my heart or mind that desires to accumulate money just to have the highest score. Oh sure, I’d love a few million dollars just so I don’t have to work and can do good works, but to me the only value in having billions would be the good things that could be done with that much money.
He should apply for a Phd. Graduate schools will sometimes take someone without an undergraduate degree. An admissions committee might understand why he didn’t get a degree. Of course, they might think he will loiter aimlessly without finishing his doctorate but since he is self-funded, at least he isn’t draining too much in resources.
But you’re dead. I’m not sure you’ve entirely thought this plan through.
Me? My wife and I coordinate, so she get essentially everything unless she is already dead. I’m assuming that if I’ve got $1 billion, I’ve already ensured during my life that my family is comfortably taken care of. The first $400 million goes to founding a medical school in my wife’s name, with a little chunk allocated to advocating for a greater number of Medicare residency slots for doctors. I would spend another $300 million setting up 15 primary care healthcare clinics in medically-underserved rural areas. They would be a Trojan horse though, because they would all offer abortion services too once the community came to rely on them for a range of medical services. They would be non-profit but hopefully financially viable enough over time to expand services, open other clinics, and buy out other hospital groups in other places. Abortion is a medical service that should be available where people get their medical care; not some seedy service offered only in isolated clinics.
Most of the remaining $200 million goes to liberal causes like civil rights and the environment.
The final bit, let’s say $10 million or so, goes to making my death memorable. I’d pay bail for 100 randomly selected people arrested for non-violent offenses in a major U.S. city, and sponsor a criminal justice researcher to compare their outcomes at trial and later in life with the control group who aren’t offered bail.
I would bury a sealed pot with instructions on how to collect 10,000 shares of carefully selected stock (worth $1 million at burial) from my attorneys. I would also leave an ambiguous map and clues about how to find it.
I would instruct my attorneys to buy $100,000 worth of silver nickels and quarters, mix them into rolls of standard coins, and deposit them into local credit unions in a couple of small towns. Then they could announce what they had done in the local papers.
I would pay the judges of the Amelia Island Concours to hold a contest to locate the person that has owned the worst used car the longest. That person would be invited to receive either a full restoration of their old car or the moderately-priced new car of their choice. If they chose the new car, the old car would be converted into a Lemons racer and donated to a technical school.
I’d buy train tickets for 200 homeless people in cities all over the country to go anywhere in the U.S. that they wanted.
I’d offer to pay the litigation costs of 10 people defamed by white supremacists.
If there were any money left over, I’d start another Stork Derby in whichever city in America had the most Democratic lean in the most recent mid-term election. Great Stork Derby - Wikipedia
20 million goes to my domestic partner, ALL the rest goes to the establishment of an organization designed to disrupt the operations of commercial factory-fishing that fucks up the sea, and oil drilling that does the same. Not anti-whaling, which is a niche cause that is counterproductive to focus on; rather the overfishing of cod, tuna, the unsustainable factory-farming of “Atlantic” salmon, and the pollution of the ocean. My money will fund the retention of legal counsel; ships and boats; technology; and weapons, for this organization.