ABA Millionaires

Shocking, a little embarrassing, and a little gratifying (value confirming, which is also embarrassing) but true: There are many millionaires in ABA. Maybe not too exciting because, the American middle-class is now full of millionaires. And, of course a million ain’t what it used to be, but it’s still enough.

The majority of America’s millionaires are just hard-working people who live below their means, stay out of debt, and put the rest in retirement savings. Their average age is 55 to 60. About 25% are professionals and teachers like you and me. My guess is they had no intention of becoming millionaires; they were just doing their jobs and one day noticed it happened—the retirement fund, the personal saving, and the home combined to equal more than one million. Also, my guess is that the maturing Association for Behavior Analysis has quite a few of those hard-working, everyday millionaires.

Of course a million is sort of a metaphor; it doesn’t need to be a million, a few hundred k is cool. The point is many of us will live the rest of our lives in comfort and probable security and leave a significant estate after we move on to that Skinner box in the sky. We may or may not leave children behind. And if there are children, some of those children may need a few extra dollars to keep it together. But many may not need too much; you’ve already made your contribution to them and set them on the road to their own succes

In any event, there will be many people who really do need your help, people who will continue working toward the goals we’ve all been working toward all our lives—understanding and improving the human condition through behavior analysis. Those people are the students studying behavior analysis, the ones who will keep our field alive long after we’ve gone. And many of those people will be more or less living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while they acquire the skills of behavior analysis and will be burdened with big debts when they graduate and set out to practice behavior analysis. Those young people will need our encouragement to begin the study of behavior analysis and to continue until they become professionals. A few of our dollars will greatly increase their chances of success by helping with the costs of grad school, attending ABA, and doing research.

As I have no children, I’ve willed about half of my estate to WMU’s Behavior Analysis Program student fund and the other half to ABA’s student fund. I worked it out with WMU’s funding experts, then my attorney, and then ABA. At this point my material benefits are a WMU VIP parking sticker and invitations to WMU Alumni fund-raising banquets, the later being so aversively boring and irritating I soon realized I’d disinherit WMU if attending those banquets was a necessity for its being a beneficiary. I haven’t gotten my act together to investigate the many complex options of charitable giving, estate planning, immediate tax benefits, increasing current income by nailing down the gift now, charitable remainder annuity trusts, revocable trusts, and so forth. But there are many specialists willing to help us charitable givers, and maybe ABA even has access to this expertise. In the mean time I did manage to get my will drawn up as a sort of place holder.

Bottom line, as we dollar guys say: To maximize your contribution to behavior analysis, consider including ABA in your will.

Look forward to seeing you at many ABAs to come.