Guy C. Stevenson, Guest Blogger
It is being touted as a groundbreaking achievement . . . it is, however, neither groundbreaking nor really much of an achievement. Recently, Michael and Susan Dell pledged over $6 billion to fund the “Trump Accounts,” as the proposed government-backed savings program for children are being labeled.
The idea is to seed individual accounts with $250 for children age ten and under to encourage early investing in stock market index funds. This will allegedly boost opportunities for future education, homeownership, or business, although how it is not quite clear. The Dell’s donation is intended to kickstart savings for millions of children, especially those outside the initial federal grant program. According to the Dell’s mission statement,
Our mission is to transform philanthropy into stewardship by embedding capital ownership into the lives of America’s children. Generosity may plant seeds, but only ownership grows orchards that endure across generations. We seek to move beyond charity gardens of temporary relief toward orchards of productive capital, where every child learns responsibility through dividends, agency through property rights, and resilience through stewardship.
The greatest gift the philanthropic-minded can give is not simply their wealth, but the wisdom to teach the future how to do the same: to create capital estates of their own, becoming self-fulfilling prophecies of empowerment for generations to come.
This Ownership Reset is not redistribution or austerity—it is justice. It is the restoration of a missing right: the right of every citizen to participate directly in the wealth they help create. By aligning philanthropy with collateral-backed accounts and universal access to capital credit, we can seed a culture where stewardship is taught as early as savings, and where empowerment is inherited as naturally as opportunity.
Our purpose is clear: to ensure that America’s future is not only built, but owned—by the children who will inherit it.
Philanthropy is not in conflict with stewardship — it is the seedbed of it. Michael and Susan Dell’s $6.25 billion gift proves large-scale generosity can be harnessed for. Their gift is historic, not only for its scale but for its intent: to seed opportunity in the lives of America’s children.
Still, generosity alone is not enough. What is needed is true systemic transformation, a move up the scale of charity from simple almsgiving or token seed money to broad-based capital ownership. As articulated in Michael D. Greaney’s and Dawn K. Brohawn’s The Greater Reset, there needs to be a fundamental systemic shift. This is from temporary relief from short-term or one-time philanthropy to permanent empowerment through ongoing and significant capital ownership; philanthropy can plant the seed, but stewardship grows the orchard.
The Dell donation seeds 25 million children with $250 each. This is a remarkable act of generosity, proving the soil fertile, the infrastructure viable, and the cultural appetite ready.
It seems churlish to point out two significant flaws in such a stunning act of charity. One, to be absolutely frank, however, $250 is not enough to make a difference by itself. It is a token, a tiny garden plot. Two, no one, regardless how wealthy, can afford to give 25 million children the means to become financially independent — directly.
Gardens alone cannot sustain a nation. The orchard of capital ownership requires more. Every child, woman, and man should be able to establish and maintain collateral-backed accounts delivering up to $10,000 or more in productive capital per individual. This would teach stewardship through dividends, responsibility, and the lived experience of ownership. The difference between a savings balance and an ownership account is the difference between a garden which feeds for a season and an orchard which sustains for generations.
Greaney and Brohawn’s The Greater Reset explains the true reset is not achieved through austerity or redistribution of existing wealth. Rather, the current system can be revolutionized or reset through universal access to ownership of future wealth: the vast amount of new capital formed each year, from rentable space to the latest advances in AI. Each person can be made “creditworthy” and allowed to purchase an equitable amount of this newly formed capital using collateralized credit.
The Dell donation positions itself as the pilot orchard — demonstrating mass accounts can be planted. Savings accounts and philanthropy deposits are a noble beginning, but they remain passive balances. Ownership accounts, backed by collateral and invested in productive assets, complete the journey. They are the mechanism by which children not only learn to save but to steward, to see dividends as the fruit of responsibility rather than charity.
Consider the parable of the orchard. A village plants gardens with $250 seeds. The soil proves fertile, and sprouts appear. But the wise elders say: “If the soil can grow gardens, it can grow orchards.” So, they plant $10,000 trees, each bearing fruit for generations. The gardens fed the moment; the orchards fed the nation.
The Dell donation is not the harvest—it is the pilot orchard. Dialogue with the future demands we take the next step: from philanthropy deposits to collateral-backed credit, from passive balances to active dividends and stewardship education, from charity gardens to ownership orchards. Why save for a rainy day when the fruits of ownership pay dividends for a lifetime?
The lesson is clear. America’s children deserve more than exposure to savings. They deserve exposure to ownership. If we are serious about building the energy infrastructure of the future, about democratizing access to productive capital, about teaching responsibility alongside opportunity, then we must move beyond philanthropy. The Dell gift proves the soil fertile. Now we must plant orchards.
Philanthropy has always been a noble impulse, but its greatest gift is not simply wealth—it is the wisdom to teach the future how to do the same. Charity gardens feed hunger today; ownership orchards build resilience tomorrow. The Greater Reset is not about redistribution or austerity. It is about ensuring that every child has a stake in the productive assets of society, that dividends become lessons in responsibility, and that stewardship becomes a cultural norm.
The Dell donation is a pilot, a proof of concept. It shows that mass accounts can be seeded, that infrastructure can deliver, and that culture can embrace the idea of shared opportunity. But the true reset requires scaling from gardens to orchards. It requires collateral-backed accounts that give children not just savings but ownership, not just exposure but agency.
Philanthropy plants seeds. Ownership grows orchards. America must choose orchards.
The Dell donation proves the soil fertile. Dialogue with the future demands we plant orchards of ownership, not just gardens of savings. This is the Greater Reset the future requires.
Philanthropy proves the soil fertile; stewardship ensures the orchard endures.
Inspired by Louis O. Kelso, TIME Magazine, June 29, 1970 https://time.com/archive/6816578/the-man-who-would-make-everybody-richer/
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