Child Of The Pledge

Ted Stanley made a fortune on knickknacks, then promised it to medical research on mental illness. His son is bird-dogging that commitment. And, yes, it’s personal.

- Ashlea Ebeling

At the age of 19, Jonathan Stanley dropped out of college and began behaving erratically. He ended up in a psychiatric unit, brought there by New York City cops called to deal with a naked young man in a deli convinced secret agents were after him. Diagnosed as bipolar with psychotic features, Jon went through what he calls a “dramatic four years” before, with the help of lithium and Tegretol, he got fully back on track. He graduated from Williams College and Quinnipiac School of Law and became an expert and lobbyist on laws affecting commitment and treatment of the mentally ill. Name a state and Jon can rattle off what’s right or wrong with its laws.

Yet, at 51, he has put his legal work on the back burner, going into “semi-retirement”, as he puts it in typically self-deprecating fashion. That’s because most of his working hours are now devoted to completing his late father’s $1.4 billion charitable commitment to medical research mental illness, as well as to dealing with more mundane details of his dad’s estate. Jon figures he’ll be ready for his third act by the time he’s 60.

Sure, lots of ageing boomers and Gen-Xers take time from busy lives to wrap up their parents’ affairs. But Jon Stanley has embraced a rare filial duty as what might be called a child of the pledge. Since Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett proposed in 2010 that their fellow billionaires promise to give at least half their wealth to charity, either during their lifetime or at death, 158 Giving Pledges have been signed, including by Jon’s parents, Ted and Vada Stanley. In only eight cases have both husband and wife (or a sole signer) passed away. There are likely some disappointed would-be heirs out there, but many pledgers, like the Gates, try to bring their kids in early on their philanthropic plans.