Doris Buffett

Doris Buffett, a self-styled retail philanthropist who once declared that her billionaire younger brother, Warren Buffett, “loves to make money and I love to give it away,” died on Tuesday August 4 2020 at her home in Rockport, Me. She was 92. Her death was confirmed by her grandson Alexander Buffett Rozek. Doris Buffett started the Sunshine Lady Foundation in 1996 after inheriting money. Through it, she has also given away $150 million of her own money, focusing primarily on larger programs such as scholarships for domestic violence victims, college education for prison inmates and efforts to help people with mentally illnesses. Doris Buffett focuses her foundation's main giving on the communities where she lives: Fredericksburg, Virginia; Wilmington and Beaufort, North Carolina, and Rockport, Maine. But she doesn't confine her gifts to those places. She later left the foundation in a dispute between the staff and the family and, with her brother, founded The Letters Foundation, which has made more than 1,000 grants. Doris Buffett's main goal is to provide one-time aid and, whenever possible, connect people with other forms of help. Much of the money she gave away went to her several hometowns — Fredericksburg, Va.; Wilmington and Beaufort, N.C.; and Rockport. Her father, Howard H. Buffett, was a stockbroker and four-term Republican congressman. Her mother was Leila (Stahl) Buffett, whom Doris Buffett believed was bipolar. After graduating from Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, she attended George Washington University and later earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska. She married Truman Wood, in the first of four marriages that would end in divorce. In addition to her brother Warren, Ms. Buffett is survived by three children from her first marriage, Robin, Marshall and Sydney Wood; her sister, Bertie Buffett Elliott; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.