Karoff quoted in Barron’s cover story on Next-Gen Givers
Date Published: December 9, 2008
Peter Karoff chimes in on a new generation of donors working to integrate their desire to achieve and their desire to do good:
Next-Gen Givers
By SUZANNE MCGEE
Generous Gen-Xers are putting their own spin on charitable giving, combining their desire to achieve with their desire to do good.
THE STORY IN PHILANTHROPY THIS HOLIDAY SEASON is becoming all too familiar. Individuals, foundations and corporations are all scaling back their giving, often leaving nonprofit beneficiaries in the lurch. Just last week, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest philanthropic concern, said it would slow its donations next year because of the hobbled economy and turbulent financial markets.
Behind the headlines, however, a surprisingly encouraging trend is taking hold: A new generation of donors is moving into place -- an energetic and highly creative crowd that eventually could reshape philanthropy.
These younger givers -- entrepreneurs, executives and latter-day members of old-money clans -- are intent on leaving a mark now, not in their 50s and 60s. Some are even dropping the p-word itself. "We don't call what we are doing philanthropy; we call it having an impact," says Peter Kellner, 39, managing partner of Uhuru Capital Management.
The new firm is about to launch a fund-of-hedge-funds that will turn over 25% of its partnership-incentive fees, or potentially as much as 5% of profits, to entrepreneurial ventures in developing markets, where it also will invest. "This is a model that combines the desire to achieve and the desire to do good," says Kellner. "Why should we artificially separate these two drives in our everyday lives?"
That attitude is typical of the new generation of givers. "They want to make it a part of the way they live as early as possible, not just something that they do with any leftover money at the end of their lives," says Peter Karoff, founder of The Philanthropy Initiative, a Boston-based philanthropic-advisory firm.
Already, these givers look to be more generous than their forebears. A survey conducted by Northern Trust, the private-banking concern, revealed that Generation-X millionaires (aged 28 to 42) gave an average of $20,000 to worthy causes in 2006, double the size of giving by their parents and grandparents. Take that, boomers.
Read the full article on Barrons.com
