Peter Karoff featured in Boston Globe article on donor passions

By Julie Hatfield, Globe Correspondent  |  May 7, 2006

Many philanthropists want to give their money away anonymously. They also want to ensure the money gets to the right cause, but may not want to take the time to make sure their money is used wisely.

Even if they want to remain unnamed, many philanthropists still want to ensure that their money is used well by the right cause.
That's where Peter Karoff, a poet and founder of The Philanthropic Initiative, Inc., comes in. Among other things, the 17-year-old Boston nonprofit helps anonymous donors find the right causes. Every spring, TPI gives grants of $30,000 to six individuals who work in community service in Greater Boston. The money, given without strings attached, comes from anonymous donors who contacted TPI.

Over the years, TPI has been involved with more than $700 million of investment. Half of TPI's work is with individuals and half is with businesses, among them CVS, Polaroid, Putnam, and Boston Scientific.

''I have a fascination with why some companies are generous and some are lumps in the sand," Karoff said. ''Our job, and goal, is to help Boston business people become knowledgeable about what the needs are, both globally and in their own communities."

Karoff says he felt compelled by the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King in 1968 to do ''something," but first he had to make a living. He worked in the insurance business, then real estate and finance, before he created TPI.

''Strategic philanthropy" is one term Karoff has for his work; another is ''transformational philanthropy" because he tries to connect people with causes that relate to their passions.

TPI helped CVS, the Woonsocket, R.I., drug-store chain, create two programs: a corporate scholarship program for children of CVS employees and an outreach program for nonprofits in New England. Now each year, CVS in Rhode Island holds a charity golf tournament that brings in between $600,000 and $700,000 for New England nonprofit organizations.

Donna Eidson, formerly the executive director of the Polaroid Foundation, said that after a companywide survey of charitable giving, ''we discovered we were giving lots of money in small amounts to a whole lot of Boston charities, i.e. 'a mile wide and an inch deep,' and we wanted to have a positive impact on the community."

Eidson contacted Karoff after hearing about the work TPI had done with CVS. ''We came up with 'helping people acquire skills that would enable them to become self-sufficient,' which meant job training, economic development, literacy, and the like," Eidson said.

Before Polaroid's downturn during the mid-1990s, the company established the Polaroid Fund at the Boston Foundation, which remains even though the instant film firm has since been sold to privately held Petters Group of Minnesota.

Like Polaroid, Putnam got in touch with Karoff because it wanted to better focus its charitable activities. The result: Putnam hired a community relations manager and, after surveying employees, decided to help at-risk city youth.

Putnam Youth Partners Program, now in its 13th year, helps young people hone their interview skills, write resumes, and think about their careers. Putnam also sponsors interns from the program and financial literacy days for youth. Putnam encourages employees to volunteer for the program, and last year 900 of them did, according to a spokeswoman, Nancy Fisher.

When Boston Scientific Corp., the Natick medical devices company, approached Karoff, he asked the firm to identify a critical social issue. The response: providing healthcare services in Boston neighborhoods.

The company established the Boston Scientific Foundation in 2002 with the mission of working with neighborhood health centers, said a Boston Scientific spokesman, Charles Rudnick. For example, the foundation has given $225,000 over the past three years to provide diabetic treatment for homeless people in Boston.

TPI has helped about 60 companies find their causes, but Karoff says there is much more to be done.

''There is a ton of money in financial companies in Boston," he said, ''and yet, more and more, company officials are not local anymore. What is the role of Massachusetts businesses whose home office is in another state?"