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Tuesday, April 7, 2020

St. Louis Native and Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey Pledges $1 Billion to Fight COVID-19

Posted By Jaime Lees on Tue, Apr 7, 2020 at 5:07 PM

Jack Dorsey is doing something great for the entire world. - TOM HELLAUER

TOM HELLAUER
Jack Dorsey is doing something great for the entire world.

We’ve never been more proud of Jack Dorsey. Not only has the St. Louis native built multiple empires with Twitter and Square, but now he’s doing something great for the entire world.

For a while, we’ve suspected that his good deeds must be fueled by Provel because he always finds ways to give back to his hometown, but Dorsey’s philanthropy doesn’t stop at the Missouri state line.

He announced on Twitter today that he plans to “fund global COVID-19 relief” with $1 billion of his Square equity.

This amount represents some 28 percent of his wealth and he has big, multi-step plans for how it will all be spent.

I’m moving $1B of my Square equity (~28% of my wealth) to #startsmall LLC to fund global COVID-19 relief. After we disarm this pandemic, the focus will shift to girl’s health and education, and UBI. It will operate transparently, all flows tracked here: https://t.co/hVkUczDQmz
— jack (@jack) April 7, 2020

Dorsey’s first tweet on the subject links to a Google Document that outlines the financial aspect. Subsequent tweets in that thread outline his objectives following the pandemic including focusing on girl’s health and education and a universal basic income.

He also explains that many grants will be made to organizations “with proven impact and efficiency in the past” and that all of this information will be made available to the public in the spirit of transparency.

He ends his tweets on the subject with “Life is too short, so let’s do everything we can today to help people now.”

We couldn’t agree more. Thanks, Jack. Your next Ted Drewes concrete is on us.

Email the author at jaime.lees@riverfronttimes.com

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Tags: Jack Dorsey, Twitter, Square, St. Louis, coronavirus, COVID-19, Image

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