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ThrustVectoring comments on A Rational Altruist Punch in The Stomach - Less Wrong
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Benjamin Franklin bequeathed a reasonable sum of money (IIRC, 1000 pounds Stirling each to two cities) to get invested for two centuries. The fund is worth something like $5 million today. I don't recall the exact details, but it's a good past example of something like this.
Franklin donated a small amount of money which grew to a very small fraction of the economy for a time period less than 1/60th of the proposal; he got incredibly lucky that he did it in America, and not in any of the other growing powers or economies of his day or later, such as Russia/France/Germany/Mexico/Argentina/Japan, which might have wiped out his legacy; and even Americans have found it difficult to replicate his feat.
I suspect the impact of this fund has been pretty small compared to the other stuff that Franklin did.