Story highlights Leslie Lenkowsky: Often the wealthy focus too much on donations to fix a complicated issue

Bezos' approach -- to help "in the here and now" -- could lead to lasting changes, he says

Leslie Lenkowsky is an expert on philanthropy and public affairs at Indiana University, where he is senior counselor to the dean of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. He was CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service under the Bush administration from 2001-2003. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

(CNN) "Philanthropy," Oscar Wilde once wrote, "seems to have become simply the refuge of people who wish to annoy their fellow-creatures." With a growing number of billionaires and other wealthy people pledging to give away large chunks of their fortunes to rid the world of diseases, illiteracy, poverty, global warming and much else, the rest of us are apt to be in for a good deal more bother in the future. However well-intentioned, their efforts usually require the objects of their concerns to change behavior in ways that often wind up doing little to solve the vast problems they are trying to address.

Leslie Lenkowsky

That is why a June Twitter post by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, owner of The Washington Post, and -- for a few hours this week -- the world's wealthiest person , has created a stir in the philanthropic world.

Despite his vast wealth, Bezos is not known for his generosity, as many of his tech-industry peers are. According to The New York Times, he is the only one of the five wealthiest Americans not to have signed the "Giving Pledge," the plan developed by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to get commitments from billionaires to give at least half their money away. But in his Tweet , Bezos said he was planning on becoming more philanthropic and asked his more than 300,000 followers to send him ideas.

However, Bezos was not looking for big challenges to tackle with his wealth. Instead, he wrote, "I'm thinking I want much of my philanthropic activity to be helping people in the here and now -- short term -- at the intersection of urgent need and lasting impact." He offered a center for homeless families in Seattle as an example.

This approach sets Bezos apart from many champions of philanthropy, from John D. Rockefeller to today's billionaires, who have seen their role as using their vast wealth to address the underlying causes of the world's problems. Priscilla Chan recently declared, for example, that the programs she and her husband, Mark Zuckerberg, are creating aim to " take luck out of the equation " for children.

Read More