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Julius Rosenwald, the businessman who built Sears into an empire, spent his fortune on nearly 5,000 schools across the rural American South. And he refused to put his name on any of them. Working alongside Booker T. Washington, he insisted that communities contribute their own resources alongside his, believing that ownership mattered as much as opportunity. “If no name is used,” Rosenwald said, “it will belong to the people.” He also arranged for his philanthropic foundation to spend itself into extinction within 25 years of his death, convinced that wealth hoarded across generations helped no one. He called it a “Give While You Live” approach. Throughout his life, he gave away over 60 million dollars, which is about 1 billion dollars in today’s times. What Rosenwald left behind wasn’t a monument to himself but something far more rare: a model of giving that trusted people to rise when someone stood beside them rather than above them.
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