The Art of Giving - Shelby and Gale Davis

Shelby Davis. The name resonates with love and gratitude in the ears of UWC students worldwide – without his philanthropic efforts, university would be a distant dream for most of us. This “borderline saint”, as grandiosely characterised by one student, accompanied by his wife, Gale, visited our school. Assemblies were held, songs were sung, dances were performed, and tours were given while “paparazzi” followed the couple’s every move. If education were the music industry, the scene could be equated to a Beetles concert. By some miracle, the Humans of UWCEA Team managed to squeeze 15 minutes into their highly tight schedule for an interview. Although all of us were enthusiastic about the Shelby UWC Scholars, the foundation facilitating our futures, we decided to avoid bombarding them with questions easily obtainable online and take a more personal approach. We sat down with Gale and Shelby Davis to talk about how they met and their journeys through life; we got pieces of golden advice and insights into life.

Part 1:

“Save and have”

Shelby Davis has been in the finance industry for decades, so we wanted to cheat the system and get the condensed version of what he learned throughout the years. We asked what the most important thing he had learned during his years in the industry was.

“Yeah, if you have the least suspicion someone’s a crook or a liar, they will be one. Many people get swindled by people who lie and promise things since, ya know, they have experience and are good at deceit. My father used to put it this way ‘find the doers, not the bluffers’ – a doer is somebody who will sit down and means what they say and says what they mean. The ones in life that don't do that are, ya know, liars often.”

With a little push from his wife, Shelby commented on the habits of doers. He told us a story about how in his youth (while working for his father), he had missed breakfast and asked his father for a dollar to buy a hotdog.

“He got a dollar out of his wallet and put it there. He said, ‘Now, if you took that dollar and you invested it successfully for the next 50 years, do you realise how much that dollar would be worth if you compounded it at, say, 10% a year?’ It’d double every 7 years. So let's say they're talking about 2% inflation in the world right now or in the US, and they wanna go back to 2%. That still means 2% that's over 36 years it would double, so in somebody's lifetime, the price of something is gonna quadruple. [...]. If you take a long term of that money, it doesn't become so important to you to spend it and show off in one way or another. Like, I never bought a house, I rented for 20 years, and even when we had children, we rented. I didn't have a car because I was living in New York City, and a car is an expense, and you hardly ever drive it, ya know.”. He sums it up, “‘Save and have’ – if you save, you'll have, and if you don't save, you won't have.”

It is worth mentioning his life philosophy which can be compressed into a motto, “Learn, Earn, Return”. This ideology divides a person’s life into three periods – at first, one must learn until about 30; With the accumulated knowledge, one should earn for another 30 years; The last part of one’s life, one should give back. The advice he gave us got Mr Davis to a point where he can change the lives of thousands of students – he is a doer, allowing him to give back by supporting the UWC movement. To us students, he is kind of a rockstar, and to everyone, he should act as a role model.

Part 2:

“My regret is that I didn’t meet Gale earlier”

Shelby and Gale are a true power couple – their dynamic is admirable, they complement one another, and the mutual respect between them is visible. We were delighted by their relationship, so we wanted to find out how it all started. Gale took the lead on this one, as she was afraid “of what [Shelby] might say”.

“I had been travelling around, and I came back to New York; I had been looking for a job. My roommate said, ‘Oh, you should look at this job; you know more about finance than I do; you'd be good at it!’ so I did. I'm gonna make it brief because it's a long story, but I ended up with Shelby interviewing me for the last of my interviews – he said, ‘Okay, we're ready to hire you, hopefully, you can come to work next week?’ and I said, ‘No, I'm travelling.’, he said, ‘Well, how about next month?’, but I said, ‘No, I'm not finished travelling.’. Despite it all, he offered me a job. But he did not raise my salary from the job I was present in so that annoyed me. I talked to a good friend, and I said, ‘I don't know if I want to work for his company.’ The friend said ‘You'd be crazy if you didn't.’ So I did. We got to know each other, and the rest is history.”.

Everyone who’s seen them would agree Shelby made the best choice of his life. “She [Gale] was accurate, and I'm a little off the ball, so we made a good team.”. Shelby is very talkative and likes to trail off from the original questions; Gale is always there to put him back on track. She brings order to the relationship, and “it’s clear who is the captain of the ship”, he remarked.

Both of them have lived lives more fruitful than most – as everyone makes mistakes, and choices they regret, we inquired whether they had moments like that. Shelby’s answer melted our hearts:

“My regret is that I didn’t meet Gale earlier”. Everyone in the room collectively went, “Awwww”. They are the most beautiful couple I have seen; amongst those who met them, it was a consensus, ‘If I am to marry, I want a relationship like this one’. There is a folk legend about how the gods of my culture created soul mates: Each pair of people is like an apple. The gods split them into halves and scattered them across the Earth, and it’s up to every individual to find their other half. If they don’t match, there is friction in the relationship, while a match results in harmony. Shelby and Gale appear to have found their other halves.

While Shelby’s answer should restore the belief in love in even the most cold-hearted, Gale’s outlook is inspiring in its own regard.

“I don't regret [anything]; that's how I was raised, kinda a philosophy ‘use it up, wear it out, make do or do without’, and it's just a habit.”

Take everything life throws at you, don’t complain about anything and be content with what you have – if everyone followed this philosophy, the world would be a happier place.

Part 3:

We would have enjoyed a whole evening talking to them, the conversation was warm, genuine, and inspiring, yet everyone wanted a minute with the Davis family. During our entire chat, the teachers circled around, looking for an opportunity to snatch them away.

Their visit was hectic – they got off their boat in Mombasa and, after an hours-long drive, were given an extensive tour of the school; It ended in our assembly hall, where a full-school congregation showcased our diversity with dances, songs, and other performances; Later, they presided over lunch for future Davis Scholars and our Student Government; only once this ended did they get a few days to themselves which did not last, as they visited the school’s other campus in Arusha – the whole story from the beginning…

To be honest, many expected Shelby Davis to be the stereotypical image of millionaire philanthropists – arrogant, inconsiderate people who only give back to improve their self-image, yet he proved all of them wrong. His down-to-earth demeanour, constant willingness to speak with students and honesty left a mark on everyone in the school.

Before his visit, most students saw him as this amorphous blob of a philanthropist who pays for their studies. Now, he is a regular guy with a beautiful marriage and a worthwhile cause, education, which he is building with the money earned with hard work.

I would like to end with his explanation as to why all of the Davis scholarships are given in the U.S.

“In our case, you have to come to the US because I'm so unimpressed with how much Americans know about the world; they know nothing. I mean, half of them, when you ask them where Afghanistan is, they think it's South America or Africa. I mean, come on!”.

Shelby Davis is doing his part to make the world a better place. Not only is he providing international students from around the world with opportunities to pursue their dreams, minimising the ignorance of Americans in the process, but he is also more humble than most and leads an honest, happy life. A true inspiration.