Even the Rich Need Charitable Advice
The American Benefactor magazine is in accord with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s description of the very rich as “different from you and me.” One peculiarity is philanthropy. The wealthy can’t simply give money away. No, that would be too easy. They need help.
Read the new quarterly dedicated to high-end generosity, and it would appear easier for camels to pass through eyes of needles than for the rich to pass on their money. At least if they’re going to do it correctly.
What with all those pesky tax laws and doing right by those pesky heirs and setting up “charitable remainder” trusts and giving to the right cause and last--and, boy, is this ever not least--being remembered as the guy who did the giving, the rich are burdened with problems. Or what financial advisors gently refer to as “issues.”
“Issues” strike terror in the hearts and wallets of the wealthy. It’s usually a code word for: Inheritance taxes are going to grab every dime you made before your head hits the coffin pillow. Though it can also concern leaving a billion-dollar estate to a junkie son who’s injected more morphine than all the medics in WW II combined.
“We’re not telling people how to give money away,” says Benefactor founder-President Roberta d’Eustachio. “We’re telling them the issues related to it. Before you decide you’re ready to give it away, you have things to think about.”
This pre-giving thought process is where the magazine comes in. It brings up the issues in a nice, nonconfrontational way. It educates in articles about trusts, how to form foundations and how the tax codes affect charitable giving. It says giving is good. Giving more is even better. And it’s saying it in a first-run of 250,000 magazines. “We want to move people from being donors to being benefactors,” d’Eustachio says.
“At the turn of the last century in the age of Rockefeller, Rosenwald and Carnegie, the wealthy constituted islands of affluence in a sea of poverty. Now, at the turn of this century, we have archipelagoes of poverty in a sea of affluence,” says the magazine’s editor, Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., in a letter to readers in the first issue. “But as the charitable and potentially charitable have grown in number and diversified in background and mission, any sense of being involved in a common endeavor has virtually disappeared. We aim to reverse this trend as only a magazine can.”
The magazine’s founder is a former fund-raiser (as well as a poet with a master of fine arts from the Iowa Writers Workshop) who saw a publishing niche she felt needed filling. Seated in a conference room in her Manhattan office, she talks about the roughly 3 million millionaires in the United States, how “the greatest shift of wealth in history” is about to happen, and wonders “who will be the next Carnegie?”
(With Bill Gates on the premiere spring issue’s cover, there’s a strong hint at whom American Benefactor thinks might be the next mega-magnate-turned-philanthropist. But since Microsoft’s $20 Billion Man declined to speak to the magazine, the seven-page article, which runs under the heading Speculations, is pretty much just that.)
Since charities want their donors to become benefactors just as much as d’Eustachio does (one would assume more money would flow from the more nobly titled giver), the magazine has worked out a neat trick for distribution: Nonprofit charities pay about $10 a year for the magazine, which they then send to select donors as a gift. “These people are already the most generous in the country,” she says. “That’s why they’re getting the magazine.”
To prevent overlap, charities must “claim the name,” in d’Eustachio’s words, of a donor, then send the name and address to American Benefactor. This assures that no other nonprofit has claimed that donor / benefactor-to-be. Without this, the number of magazines Gates would receive almost defies counting.
To overcome the reluctance charities have to relinquish the identities of their big givers (and seeing them become someone else’s benefactors), d’Eustachio signs a legal agreement that the list can never be sold or revealed. “This will be the most concentrated list of wealth and generosity ever assembled,” she says. “My eyes popped out when I saw the names.”
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At least the list’s demographics has been good for attracting the blue-chip collection of advertisers that have bought pages. Mercedes-Benz, Rolex, Neiman Marcus, Saab, Tentation catering (“New York * Paris * Moscow”) and Four Seasons Hotels are all represented. They would seem to be wanting some of the wealth before it’s given away.
One group that would seem natural advertisers--nonprofits themselves--are prohibited from buying space. “There will be no fund-raising. Period,” d’Eustachio says. And there won’t be any stories about the charities. The magazine wants to avoid any hint of favoritism or giving an unfair advantage. “Our beat is not the charities,” she says. “It’s the benefactors.”
Local charities that have signed up for the magazine include Los Angeles Orthopaedic Hospital Foundation, the California Museum Foundation, the Boy Scouts, KCET and the YMCA.
KCET’s director of development, Pier Merone, sent it to selected contributors with a personal note, saying this is a new magazine, take a look, see if it’s of interest. “I think the jury is still out,” Merone says. “I think the bottom line is, it’s a fine magazine that could be a real service to the donor and to the nonprofits, provided we send it to the right donor. I’m relying on the donors to let me know if they see it as useful.”
Stephen Burns, executive vice president of the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles says, “It’s a little to early to tell how we ultimately like the magazine. It looks like it might have useful information for our leadership and donors. We’re trying it for a year.”
What these donors will be seeing is a very slick product, in some ways reminiscent of Town & Country. (Its parent company is Capital Publishing, publisher as well of Worth and Civilization.) Besides the cover story on Gates, the first issue includes “Outrageous Fortune,” subtitled “The baby boomers’ $10 trillion inheritance from their parents is philanthropy’s favorite statistic,” “America’s Greatest Rainmakers,” “A Family Foundation Is a Tie That Binds” and “Saying No Nicely,” Letitia Baldrige’s advice for the over-importuned wealthy.
Other features are about the bequest of a Florentine villa to New York University and why Bette Midler is adopting a section of an East Coast highway for cleanup. (When she moved to New York from L.A., she was stunned at how dirty the roads were.)
Whether the stories inspire readers to greater giving isn’t first in d’Eustachio’s mind. It’s whether reading it will make them better informed donors.
