Tim Sweeney
/SOURCE OF WEALTH: Epic Games
FUNDING AREAS: STEM, Environment
OVERVIEW: While Tim Sweeney does not appear to have a formal family foundation, his company’s Epic MegaGrants has committed $100 million to support game developers and others working with the Unreal Engine. Sweeney is a strong backer of environmental causes.
BACKGROUND: Born and raised in Potomac, Maryland, Tim Sweeney graduated with a B.S. in mechanical engineering from University of Maryland in 1993. He is the co-founder and CEO Epic Games based in North Carolina. The company created Fortnite, one of the world's most popular games, and also created the the Unreal Engine, which has powered a litany of first person shooter games.
ISSUES:
STEM: Epic Games has committed $100 million to support game developers, enterprise professionals, media and entertainment creators, students, educators, and tool developers “working with the Unreal Engine or enhancing open-source capabilities for the 3D graphics community.” Epic MegaGrants awards range from $5,000 to $500,000 and cover a range of efforts to catalyze creativity and technological advancement within the 3D graphics community.
ENVIRONMENT: Sweeney is an avid hiker, spurring deep environmental philanthropy. For around a decade now, he has purchased swaths of forest at risk for development in North Carolina, buying up some 50,000 acres so far. In 2016, Sweeney donated $15 million to protecting 7,000 acres of the Box Creek Wilderness, a forest that sits in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He also donated money to conservation projects in Mount Michael State Park. In April 2021, he announced that he intended to donate 7,500 acres in the Roan Highlands of western North Carolina to the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy.
Of this giving, Sweeney says that: “Land conservation is the one unquestionably practical and cost-effective thing we can do to protect ecology and the future habitability of the planet. You can spend $100 on land conservation and less than $5 of it is lost to overhead.” Grantees have included Piedmont Land Conservancy and Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, both in North Carolina.
IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES: Epic Games announced its intention to donate all proceeds from in-game sales in Fortnite made between March 21 and April 3, 2022 toward humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. The effort raised over $110 million for the cause.
LOOKING FORWARD: Sweeney is only in his 50s, and very much still engaged in business. Perhaps he will establish a formal family foundation in the coming years and his environmental grantmaking will deepen.
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