Her identify was Maddie, and earlier than David Duffield was a billionaire, she was his rock. In varied interviews over time, the tech founder finest identified for PeopleSoft and Workday has described her as a lighthouse in his stormy startup days and an expensive good friend. Her unconditional love, in line with Duffield, helped he and his spouse Cheryl survive the stress of the entrepreneurial journey.
Maddie, their miniature schnauzer, was not solely the primary of many dogs the Duffields would undertake into their household over time but in addition the inspiration for the couple’s subsequent philanthropic efforts.
David and Cheryl met Maddie when she was simply ten days outdated, and it was love at first sight. “She melted our hearts from the first second we saw her with her sweet ways, her stubbornness, her independence, her intelligence, her spirit and her devotion,” David Duffield informed PAWS Chicago in 2012.
She was with the couple by thick and skinny, and on one notably good day, he picked her up and informed her he needed to do his half to verify her fellow canines might at all times be as comfortable as he felt in that second.
“I promised her that if I ever made any money in my career, we’d give it back to companion animal causes in her honor,” David Duffield mentioned in a press release when Dog Fancy Magazine included him on its forty fifth anniversary checklist of people that’ve modified the canine world for the higher.
In 1994, three years earlier than Maddie handed away, he and Cheryl made good on that promise by launching Maddie’s Fundwhich awards grants to initiatives associated to animal adoption, foster look after companion animals, no-kill shelters, veterinary analysis and efforts to maintain folks and pets collectively. Today, it has an endowment of $300 million.
Cheryl and David’s preliminary present to the inspiration, $200 million in inventory, was on the time the largest-ever single donation to an organization targeted on companion animal welfare, and the couple has since given tens of millions extra. To date, Maddie’s Fund has awarded greater than $265 million in grants to animal-focused organizations—primarily nonprofit teams that share the organization’s no-kill, foster-friendly ethos.
If David Duffield’s identify, however not Maddie’s story, strikes you as acquainted, it might be as a result of he was among the many notable figures who rapidly pledged monetary assist towards Maui’s wildfire aid efforts—albeit assist with a slender focus. Not lengthy after the wildfires destroyed Lahaina, the Dave & Cheryl Duffield Foundation (based in 2016, once more in honor of Maddie), started working with the Maui Humane Society to supply look after pets displaced by the catastrophe.
Unlike the Maddie Fund, the Dave & Cheryl Duffield Foundation funds a variety of causes. In 2021, it granted greater than $4 million to 30 charities supporting each pets and other people affected by fires in California’s Lake Tahoe area. Through the inspiration, the couple has financed all the things from hospital operations through the pandemic to assist for navy veterans to Nevada parks and faculties.
However, it’s clear simply how a lot of an impression Maddie had on the Duffields throughout her time with them. The couple nonetheless have dogs, and David has hinted that they may sometime depart their fortune to Maddie’s Fund. More importantly, Cheryl and David Duffield’s charitable giving stays, to today, very a lot targeted on the wellbeing of companion animals and their function in our lives.
In 2022, their basis granted $12.1 million to the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine to fund the creation of the Duffield Institute for Animal Behavior And as of 2023, the Dave & Cheryl Duffield Foundation is financing the event and development of a 27-acre campus for Liberty Dogsa service canine coaching initiative geared towards veterans who can profit from canine companionship and emotional assist.
