Feminism turns capitalist
http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/executive-women/feminism-turns-capitalist-20101022-16xxn.html
October 23, 2010
Wealthy women prefer investment, not charity, to help their poorer
sisters, writes Linda Morris.
--
Tracy Gary was a daughter of fortune. Her socialite mother, Patricia
deBary, was a scion of the Pillsbury family, which made its money
refining flour, but deBary defied conventions to earn her own fortune
as a stockbroker at the outbreak of World War II. Her stepfather,
Theodore Gary, was independently wealthy: his grandfather held the
patent for the dial telephone.
The Garys owned four houses and an apartment in Paris. They had
helicopters, planes and a yellow Rolls-Royce and, as money tends to
beget money, Tracy, their youngest, once won a Cadillac in a charity
raffle. A staff of 36 attended to her every need.
By the early 1970s the Gary estate was worth $US60 million in today's
dollars. Tracy Gary could have blown her inheritance on parties,
drugs and good times. Instead, uncomfortable with her wealth, at age
25 she resolved to give $1 million of her bequest away to charity by
her 35th birthday. ''My siblings thought I was daft giving it away
before having a good time.''
But Gary took seriously her parents' strong work ethic and admonition
that with wealth came the burden of social responsibility. She
switched her share portfolio out of well-performing but what she, as
an anti-war protester, considered unethical munitions and chemical
manufacturing firms supplying weaponry for the Vietnam War and
reinvested in a niche organic tea manufacturer and a childcare centre.
In 1975 she founded what has become her life's work: a network to
support wealthy women who wished to use their fortunes to help wider
society. She sought to turn around the attitudes of mega-rich
matriarchs such as those of the Levi Strauss and Hewlett Packard
fortunes who considered themselves custodians for their dead spouses'
special interests and gave exclusively to museums, art galleries and
private boys' colleges.
Gary has since written Inspired Philanthropy, the step-by-step guide
for creating a giving plan and leaving a legacy. She has come to
Australia this week, her first visit in 15 years, to urge a new
generation of self-made women and entrepreneurs to share their wealth
and, amid all the worthy causes, to direct some of their dollars to
programs aimed at improving the lot of their less fortunate sisters.
Harnessing the power of the female purse for the benefit of women and
girls is a somewhat controversial movement that began in the United
States in the 1970s and is finding traction in Australia. There are
now more women controlling more wealth in Australia than ever -
almost a third, according to a report published by the Boston
Consulting Group in July - and this is expected to grow exponentially
as more women move into the workforce.
Women may still be scarce in company boardrooms but a new generation
of so-called kitchen tycoons - making millions out of cosmetics,
gourmet foods and clothing - are joining the ranks of women living on
divorce settlements and family inheritances.
The US has Oprah Winfrey, Abigail Disney, the grand-niece of Walt
Disney, Melinda Gates, the Texan oil sisters Swanee Hunt and Helen
LaKelly Hunt, and Jennifer Buffett, daughter-in-law of Warren - women
whose generosity is antithetical to spoilt, rich party girls such as
Paris Hilton.
Eve Mahlab is the founder of the Mahlab Group, which specialises in
costing recruitment and publishing services to the legal profession.
The Melbourne millionaire believes women should be singled out for
charity dollars as a matter of equity.
In December she complained at a gathering of high-profile givers that
women got the ''crumbs'' from the government and philanthropic
funding tables and that the United Nations and governments were big
on rhetoric, tiny on budget.
The statistics tell the story. Women, she says, are 2½ times more
likely than men to live in poverty in their old age. Violence is the
leading cause of death, disability and illness of Australian women
aged 15 to 48. Every day 1500 women die from complications of
pregnancy or childbirth, and when a mother dies in childbirth the
chances her young orphaned children will die doubles. Yet globally
less than 10 per cent of foundation grants go to women and girls.
''I believe we are witnessing the third wave of the women's
movement,'' Mahlab told these new-style philanthropists. ''The first
got us the vote, the second liberated us from our virtual confinement
to unpaid house and caring work, and the third, in the wake of women
gaining education, influence and wealth, will see the financial
empowerment of women and the resulting benefit to families, the
community and the country.''
Funding women's advancement is not merely about redressing gender
imbalance in funding, it is smart business, says Julia Keady, the
chief executive of the Australian Women Donors Network, the loose
network of mainly female philanthropists Mahlab co-founded three
years ago to build a public case for focusing on women and girls.
Most donors believe women are automatic beneficiaries of charity
dollars. But unless the philanthropic impulse is targeted at women,
benefits can be lost, Keady says.
That is true of microfinancing, favoured as one of the more direct
routes to empower the disenfranchised and the poor. Long-term
monitoring found men were more likely to fritter away profit than
women, who generally used it for the care of children, Keady says.
''The best way to improve paediatric health is to feed and care for
the mothers.''
Keady raises homelessness as another case in point. Forty per cent of
Australia's homeless are women and yet they are most likely to be
turned away from emergency accommodation because housing has been
built for single males.
Today's benevolent woman wants to put her wealth and business sense
to good use, not always in the way of traditional philanthropists.
The trend is towards a highly participatory form of giving in which
donations are combined with activism to create social change,
sometimes pooling money with other women as part of a giving circle
or investment club to maximise the dollar impact, at times
participating in organised volunteer activities or at board level.
Are women a softer touch than men? Approached by a homeless person,
women are more likely to put their hands in their pockets because
each sees the ''possibility of them one day outliving their spouses
and their reserves and becoming bag women'', Gary says.
One of the first Australians to link with Gary was Jill Reichstein,
who in 1987 took over her parents' philanthropic foundation, worth
$12 million now, gradually replacing its retiring male board with
progressive men and women who shared her vision for change, not charity.
The non-profit Gippsland Asbestos Related Disease Support is one of
33 organisations the foundation assists, providing expertise and seed
money to support victims and their families.
''Five years down the track they are at the table negotiating
enhanced pharmaceutical benefits, they are now advising government
about the clean-up and they've just received three years of
government funding,'' Reichstein says. ''You get more bang for your
buck this way and it's better than funding a nursing home for the
valley for dying people. It's said that it is better to have a fence
at the top of the cliff than an ambulance at the bottom.''
Women are driving new ways of giving that sit more comfortably with
their awakened social conscience and their discomfort with newly
acquired wealth. Most female donors prefer anonymity, such as the 20
or so who attended Gary's dinner at ANZ Bank's branch in Double Bay
on Wednesday night and wanted no publicity. ''The last thing a woman
usually wants is to be objectified as a person with a cheque book,''
Gary says. ''She may want to identify as an artist, as a mother,
first, so it's rare to see a woman flaunting her wealth.'' As a
result, chequebook philanthropy is in decline and in its place are
myriad investment and giving options.
The ''absolutely next big thing in philanthropy'' is social
investment funds that invite traditional capital investment in
enterprises which deliver financial and social returns, says Kristi
Mansfield, a Sydney social investment adviser and philanthropist.
The new Foresters Community Investment Fund gives loans to community
organisations that address homelessness, affordable housing,
specialist legal services, domestic violence and childcare, helping
migrant women, young women, the intellectually disabled and
indigenous communities along the way.
Investors are willing to accept a low return of, for example, 3 or 5
per cent if it is complemented by a social return, Mansfield says.
''Right now an international group comprising the [Bill and Melinda]
Gates Foundation and other high-net-worth individuals are trying to
create a ratings system to assess and compare social returns.'' Once
established, these funds will prove attractive to the administrators
of family foundations and trusts who need to ''work their dollars hard''.
Mansfield's three children drive her interest in supporting families
at risk of domestic violence and child abuse.
Values and passions shaped by spirituality and hopes for a better
world motivate Gary's strategy of lifetime giving to feminist,
environmental and other causes.
Gary lives on an annual salary of $100,000, giving away 40 per cent
each year to 20 charities. Her home in northern California will be
given to four different women's foundations when she dies. ''I am a
bee who loves to pollinate good ideas and hope.''
.
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