A Personal Story of How the
National Heritage Foundation Began

by Dr. J. T. Dock Houk

For those of you who are history buffs, or who might be a bit curious about how this element of charitable entrepreneurship got started, I suppose a bit of personal history is relevant. I come from a rich family. The Mead Corporation used to be a family controlled company. George Mead’s middle name was Houk, and my grandfather, Robert Thruston Houk, was a Vice President and Director of Mead. My dad, Tick, was VP of Mead Sales Company, and to confirm the sale of the first piece of Mead Moistrite Bond to Henry Luce, for his Life Magazine venture, he had to put his own credit on the line. He told the Mead Credit Manager, “If Henry doesn’t pay for this, I will!” Dad used to tell this story, adding, “Now I meet Henry in a bar on 52nd Street in Manhattan, and come home with an order for 34 carloads of paper!”

My dad was a great salesman, but – scared of the Great Depression (he graduated from Yale in 1924, and married my mother, Jane, when she graduated from Smith College in 1930, in the midst of the Depression) – he was not a generous man. If he gave $25 to the church at Christmas, that was the extent of his “generosity.” I suppose the greatest influence in my early years was my grandfather, Joe Lowes, who would (on the sly) hand me cash from time to time. So I became generous, too. I was nine years old and eavesdropping when I heard my mom discussing Christmas gifts with dad. “Don’t give Dock cash – he’ll just give it away.”

So I became a Democrat – a bleeding heart concerned for minorities, concerned for those especially in the underdeveloped countries. I was critical of what I perceived to be the excesses of “big business.” Then after a college post-grad Fulbright Scholarship to the small country of Finland (where I was able to compare Free Enterprise Helsinki with Communist-dominated Leningrad) I became a Republican. I thought the Free Market had the answers to the world’s problems.

The Interim

After receiving my MBA under the Fulbright at Svenska Handelshogskolan in Helsinki, I became a “credentials collector.” Dad and Mom wondered openly if I was ever going to get a job. I got my JD while serving as Legal Assistance Officer in the Navy from LaSalle University. I practiced in my uncle Lit Alford’s office in McComb, Mississippi until I took the Bar Exam (I got the highest grade of those taking the exam that year, Alice Neville told me), and I got my Ph.D. in Economics and International Finance from American University in Washington.

After about 50 interviews with the Peace Corps (Sergeant Shriver and Bill Moyers) for a job in Colombia or Peru, I went to work for Dave Mayer and Ed Fei in the Agency for International Development as an Economics Research Specialist. Later, I worked for Rod Morgan, Alex Vagliano, and George Novack as Assistant Development Banking Director for the Near East South Asia division of AID, and Loan Officer for India and Pakistan. I even worked on the loan to build a paved highway from Herat to Islam Qala in Afghanistan and Iran.

I left AID to become the Assistant Director of the Interamerican Development Bank Program. There I was working with Doug Lawrence and Stanley Dreyer to build a banking system for Cooperatives in Latin America. For several years I led feasibility study teams to selected countries in Latin America. I even published my first major book on “Development Banks and Inflation” (Frederick Praeger Publishers, 1967), which I translated into Spanish. It became quite popular (three printings – Publicaciones Central, Mexico City).

Life’s Stages

So now I was in my early thirties. Time to “make a heap of all my winnings and risk it in a turn of pitch and toss.” I was influenced by someone (can’t remember who it was) who thought about a person’s life span and said that there are stages in life typically related to age…

1. The early years – to age 21 – Formal instruction in the schools.

2. The twenties – OJT – work for someone – get On the Job Training in a field you choose to pursue. Get all the experience you can. Don’t talk as much as you listen.

3. The thirties – Break out on your own – Start something – If you fail, you have 25 more years till retirement to give an employer. If you succeed…

4. The forties – Make it bigger – build on your success.

5. The fifties – Consolidate.

6. The sixties – Identify and train successor leadership.

7. The seventies – if you get there – give leadership the benefit of your experience; consult.

The Vantage Ten Ninety Fund

So I began my Entrepreneurial Adventure. As a matter of fact, in the same year that I began the National Heritage Foundation (1968), I started the country’s first “social conscience investment vehicle” called the Vantage Ten Ninety Fund. Investors up to that point sought either “income, security, or growth” – the so-called “investment triangle.” I dreamed that it was high time investors thought about the social consequences of their investments. So we promised to put a dime for every dollar invested in Food Production (agriculture industries, farm machinery, land development).

My decision was influenced by a book published in 1968 by Bill and Paul Paddock called, “FAMINE 1975.” It predicted disaster for many countries caught in the Malthusian Dilemma of population outrunning food supply. I thought (in my Republican way) that the only way out was to encourage private enterprise to get involved in food production in the developing countries.

Vantage and Sir John Templeton

The story of how we got our Investment Manager is an interesting one. I asked my Board whom we should get to manage the 90% portfolio (we participated with the International Finance Corporation in buying new issues with the 10% portion). They said, “You can’t get him, but John Templeton would be the best.” So I called Mr. Templeton, now Sir John, and asked him to manage the portfolio. “How much money do you have?” he asked. “$120,000,” I replied. “No,” he said, “our minimum is $1 million.” “But… but…but,” I began. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t have time to talk to you,” he said as he was about to hang up.

“Are you taking a trip soon?” I asked. Before he had a chance to think about it he said, “I’m going to Chicago on Thursday.” “Would you be offended if I bought a ticket for the seat next to you?” “Oh,” he said, “are you going to Chicago, too?” “No, I’d just like to talk to you,” I replied. He passed me over to his secretary who gave me his seat assignment and the flight number. By the time we landed, he had agreed to be our portfolio manager.

In 1969 we were the top performing mutual fund in America, with articles in Wall Street Journal, Time, Business Week, and the like. NBC television called us, “The Conscience of Capitalism,” and the rest is history. We spawned the Social Investment Council, and now all major mutual fund groups have their version of socially responsible investments.

The Setting in 1968: Tax Reform Act of 1969

In the fall of 1968, I saw that the 1969 Tax Reform Act, which had already passed into law, would become effective on the first of the year. I reckoned that while it was aimed at curbing real abuses among charities, it was a bad thing. Before 1969, charity entrepreneurship was easy. Or relatively so. You could set up a charity, donate to it, then begin your charitable program and take a salary and expenses to do so. It was time consuming, expensive, and filled with administrivia, but at least you could begin relating to the concerns that motivated you.

After the ’69 Tax Reform Act, that opportunity was gone. The lawmakers created a new category of charity called the Private Foundation, which had so many regulations, strictures, and penalty teeth, I thought that the new law would be the death knell of charitable entrepreneurship. I concluded that if a charity was set up whose charitable purpose included the “restoration, maintenance and extension of our national heritage,” project by project, we could encourage private sector charitable entrepreneurship.

National Heritage Foundation was Born

Admittedly a small beginning: Dad contributed $200, and I began doing all the work. Wil Rose, a good friend on the West Coast, founder of DATA International, and JayCee TOYM winner for his work with Eisenhower’s People to People, suggested we use my legal structure (A charitable trust) and his name (the Heritage Foundation), which we did. But in 1974 when we started to grow, we changed the name to National Heritage Foundation, to avoid confusion with 11 other Heritage Foundations in the US.

In our 1023 submission to IRS we said that we would form segregated accounts (which we call ‘foundations at NHF’) which individually and collectively would help “restore maintain and extend our national heritage.” I recall Adrianne Barr, the IRS analyst (during the year they took to review our submission) asked “Just what do you think our national heritage is, that you are going to restore, maintain and extend?” My reply, after explaining what it isn’t (government “helping” people with their own money) was that we wanted to encourage – foundation by foundation, project by project – a people-to-people effort to make the world a better place.

Entrepreneurial Endeavor is Easier with Money

Whether it was Dad’s wisdom or stinginess, or his concern for Mom’s economic well being, but after paying for my high school education at a ritzy prep school (Phillips Academy Andover), he never gave me or my brother and sister much money. My Brown University education was free to him – NROTC Full Scholarship – MBA in Finland was paid with a Fulbright Scholarship, I paid for my own legal education, and other scholarships paid for my Doctorate.

I remember in 1951 when I wanted to play full-time on the Tennis Circuit (I was ranked #20 in the country at the time) – dad gave me $100 bucks and said, “come home when it’s all gone.” I learned valuable lessons that summer – about being a model houseguest – about making a meal of french fries and catsup – about sleeping in the back of the car. You will remember perhaps that those were the days when you received a Revere Silver Bowl for your winnings – no money at all except a pittance expense allowance from the Southern Tennis Association to ranking players.

Beginning the National Heritage Foundation

So when I started NHF, I had no money, but I had energy, enthusiasm and a knowledge on how to get by with very little. And by now I had four children who needed food, clothing and shelter (and a host of other demands that they dreamed up). My dreams had to be tempered with reality. But at the time (1968) I was 35, and according to the life timetable mentioned above, it was time to “make a heap of all my winnings and risk it on a turn of pitch and toss” (Kipling – “If”). So with lots of support from Mixie, that’s just what I did.

My Better Half – Meet “Mixie”

You certainly can’t stay happily married, with a penniless purse, and a dream in your heart, if you have a greedy hard driving wife. I met Mixie – love at first sight – at Brown University’s sister college Pembroke during the winter of my senior year. She was not only brilliant and beautiful (top of her Pembroke class [I was #6 in mine], magna cum laude, [so was I, but at the bottom], junior Phi Beta Kappa [me too] and a really nice person whom everyone liked), but also a teenage fashion model at Kresge’s in Newark and a regular on Alan Luddens’ Mind Your Manners show! But she was also, praise be, a cheap date.

She had me convinced that she really loved hot dogs, even though filet mignon was on the menu. And she continues to this day. Always respectful of my wallet, and never putting any personal financial pressure on the family. She loves to work, and from a small beginning in 1971 she built the local ACCA Child Development Center from the basement of the John Calvin Presbyterian Church to one of the most respected institutions of its kind in the State of Virginia – nay – even in the nation!

When she finally “retired” in 1998 to come be our Chief Operating Officer full time, her Center had received visits from kings and princes while caring for “at risk” children of single parents. At her retirement party from ACCA Day Care Center, the kings and princes were there – they even wrote songs for her!

Paul Made Tents: How Not to be a Financial Burden

Paul the Apostle, in order that he not be a financial burden on those to whom he ministered, made tents to earn the wherewithal to travel. I taught school. You will notice in some of the articles about what we do a reference to Dr. Jerry Falwell, a Baptist Minister in Lynchburg who founded Liberty University. And I have to say this about Jerry. Whatever you may think – he is a wonderful man. If there were any dirt about Jerry in Lynchburg, the Bob Woodwards would have found it. Jerry says, “Others may, I cannot,” and that is the end of it.

Although I am a Methodist, and at the time was teaching part time at University of Virginia, I called Dr. Elmer Towns, whom Jerry named President of the College, and said that I supposed the College needed credentialed teachers for Accreditation. He agreed.

Needing to make a lot of money in a short time, I agreed to come to Lynchburg to teach as Chairman of the Economics and Business Department, if they would arrange all my classes on Monday and Tuesday. Teaching full time would help me discharge my financial obligations to the family. Being free the balance of the week would help me pursue my dream of the success of the National Heritage Foundation.

Driving 180 miles one way once a week to Lynchburg for 17 years, I figure I drove around the earth at the equator 3 times. And staying in a motel wasn’t in the plan. Ricky Smeltz from up the street helped me remove the back seat from my Pinto, and install a shelf on which I slept in a sleeping bag two nights a week, in successive cars, for all 17 of those years. You people wonder why I sleep in Motel 6 instead of the Hyatt. Hey, that’s luxury for me. And Tom Bodette leaves the light on.

And boy was it cold some nights. I would put on two pairs of socks, gloves and a woolen hat, and snuggle way down in the bag on those nights. The University did give me a key to the gym (for exercise, I told them) (naturally they knew nothing about sleeping in the car), and I was able to shower and shave in the morning before my 7 a.m. class. I figured I could go down to 5 degrees below zero before I was really uncomfortable. You might also not bother to wonder why I spend so much time in Florida. I never want to be cold again.

It’s Not Easy to be an Entrepreneur

What I am saying is that it is not easy to be an entrepreneur. And it is definitely not easy to be an entrepreneur and keep your family together and headed in the right direction. I am certain that there are some minor scars in my family relationships that time will simply have to heal. Because I cannot say “I am sorry” – because I’m not. What a marvelous opportunity to do something that makes sense in this world of nonsense. If you are willing to make the sacrifices, follow your dream! If it were easy, everyone would do it. I AM ACTUALLY GLAD IT ISN’T EASY.

Finally Some Light at the End of the Tunnel

In the early ’70s, we began to have some success. No one knew whether it was “OK” to do what we had begun to do – but my thought was that “it’s OK unless specifically prohibited by the Law,” and people gradually began to believe. To get additional resources for the development of NHF, I sold the management contract for the Vantage Ten Ninety Fund to Alpha Management Corporation in Atlanta, and we hired our first employee, Dale Crowley, who at the time was working at a print shop, but who had just returned from Japan after 11 years as a missionary to the Japanese people.

With Dale doing the inside work, I was free to get out and sell foundations. My target group was not those who might set up foundations, but the salesmen who would contact their clients. I was at first a retailer – setting up foundations for those who wanted to get on the front lines of the charitable sector – and we had a lot of early success stories…which because of recent (2006) legislation must now be set up as individual IRS-approved charitabel corportations...

a. Jeff Steinberg Ministries – Jeff was only 48 inches high, a victim of phocomelia (congenital birth defect), and when I put him to bed at our house, I had to help him off with his leg and his arm. But when he addressed an audience with “You look at me and say to yourself, ‘God made a mistake’ I am here to tell you God doesn’t make mistakes.” And then he would sing. And if you closed your eyes, you would hear Neil Diamond’s voice. This foundation was set up by Curtis Calihan, a CFP from Nashville.

b. John Ihrie Foundation – John was legally blind, but when he sang “Jerusalem” you could hear the thunder roar. We helped him raise funds and sing all over the world. John was one of the most humble men I will ever know. Reverend Irving Philgreen set this foundation up with us.

c. The Red River Valley Foundation – Red River was the Demilitarized Zone in Viet Nam. The Pilots who made it back from raids on Hanoi set up the foundation for the kids of the pilots who didn’t. IRS challenged us on this one, stating that this was a group that could not be added to. We made the point of the MIA, and they backed off. This foundation was set up by Jim Banyhon from Prudential.

d. The Nicholas Pittas Foundation – When I met Nick, after being called by Jack Blanton of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, he had been crying – upset by an article he had read in the Washington Post, and frustrated that he was told by his Attorney that it would take a year to set up a foundation to help a young boy – John Keith Lunsford – who had his skull crushed by a bunch of toughs and nearly killed. We set up a foundation to help “kids who could not afford to get well.”

e. The American Indian Heritage Foundation – I donated the first $500 to this foundation, set up by my colleague, Dr. Wil Rose, to present the positive achievements of the Indian Culture to both the Native American, and to us Wannabee Indians. It also presented the marvelous vocal talents of Princess Pale Moon – Wil’s wife, and a Cherokee/Ojibway Princess. This foundation later “graduated” from NHF administration and runs its own show.

f. Pioneer – I also helped start (with a $500 starter grant) Ted Fletcher’s PIONEER mission support organization. They have missionaries all over the world, and an annual budget of about $30 million. They “graduated” from NHF administration about 20 years ago. A marvelous organization.

Very early on, I learned that my time was much better used to train others to set up foundations, rather than to set them up myself. So my job, as a wholesaler, was to train and motivate the seller, usually a Financial Professional – an attorney, accountant, stockbroker, banker, real estate agent, life underwriter or financial planner. Anyone whose advice affects money flows. This group was our target because if we could get them to apply the principles of the Fiscal EKG to their clients we would have a brand new salesforce for satisfying the needs of charities for funding.

The Fiscal EKG

Everybody knows about the physical EKG – it is a device that is called the Electrocardiogram that measures the performance of the heart muscle. But there is a more important (from our point of view) measure called the Fiscal EKG, that measures less tangible measures of heart performance, such as:

• a. Earn
• b. Keep
• c. Give.   EKG – get it?

If we could get members of the financial community, who were busy showing their clients how to Earn More, and Keep More, to focus also on Giving More, our charities would be stronger for the nonce. And so we began. Slowly at first, but in the late 70’s gathering speed, until by 1982 we were raising a million dollars a month for “foundations at NHF.”

The IRS Strikes Us Down

In the end of 1982, as a result of a field audit that we initiated (because we wanted firm assurance that we were kosher) IRS charged me and NHF with two counts of mismanagement.

1. A Collection of Private Foundations: They said that we were simply a collection of private foundations – providing only a clearinghouse function for funds that the donor still controlled. This was an excellent opening gun. A large number of our early foundations at NHF were private foundation liquidations. I remember Henry Naisby coming to me and admitting that the new “Private Foundation Regulations “ under the ’69 Tax Reform Act made running a private foundation more trouble than it was worth. We countered the IRS charge with the facts that the donor really did sever control when he gave the funds to NHF, and then by giving him back the “right of nomination,” (retaining the “right of approval”) we were operating within the law. We pointed out that we wrote every check after verification, and that we frequently had to place our authority between the donor and what she wanted to do.

2. Violation of the Inurement Prohibitions: The Law states that “no part of the net earnings of a charity shall inure to the benefit of an individual or shareholder.” IRS looked at our policy of compensating the financial professional and thought that this might be “inurement.” We pointed out that “inurement” applies to net earnings, and that paying the financial professional reasonable compensation out of gross income, consistent with customary practices in other areas of commerce should not be thus classified.

Judge Robinson in 1987 agreed with us, saying in his opinion that “the program of (NHF) may be unique and innovative, but it is the essence of what Congress intended when they passed IRS Code Section 501(c )(3).” And so IRS was asked to give back NFI their tax status as a public charity.

But I had Lost My Job

Even though I was the guy who thought up the idea, I was not invited back to the helm for (I suppose to them) a very good reason. They – having fired me when the disturbance started at the end of 1982 – then set up a new corporation, leaving out the word “heritage” and this new corporation, called the National Foundation Inc., actually fought the good fight and won. But now this is 1987.

And the new leadership was ensconced. I was also told by an insider that the approximately $750,000 legal bill that they had run up was promised payment by a certain donor, but that the donor’s requirement was that a certain other person (not me, I noticed) be at the helm.

Although I never gave up the dream, I figured, “Well, it’s in their hands now,” and obtained other employment. And I carried my ideas first to Saint Paul’s College, a black Episcopal College in southern Virginia. How I got the job was interesting and relevant. I conceived of a new way to raise funds, using primarily members of the financial community, called The Harvester Plan.

So I wrote details of this plan, whereby members of the financial community would be compensated on an hourly basis from a fund set up as a result of their financial success in raising funds for the college. (A Results-Based Compensation Plan). Then I mailed it to thirty college Presidents in Virginia. Within 30 hours(!) I was hired as Vice President for Development, and Chairman of the Economics Department at a small college in Southern Virginia called St. Paul’s College. It is one of the historical and predominately black colleges, begun as a Vo-Tech college in 1891 by James Solomon Russell, a freed slave.

A quick interesting story. When I arrived, I found out that my Aunt Lil (Lillian Talbott) had been touring with her chauffeur Harvey through the Carolinas and Virginia in 1923, and the open car had a flat tire near the entrance to Saint Paul’s College. James Solomon Russell was passing by and stopped to offer assistance. It had begun to rain, and he invited my Aunt and her chauffeur in for tea while some of the students changed the flat. She was so impressed by his kindness and courtesy that a friendship developed which resulted in the Talbott Science Center being built on campus. You never know.

Board Opposition to my Harvester Plan

There will be on most charity Boards at least one or two persons who – perhaps because of ignorance or perhaps an elitist viewpoint – who will object to anyone in the fund-raising arena getting paid. They ignore the fat salary of the President, who in addition to running the college is also the chief fund raiser, and they ignore the fact that the Development Director and all his staff are on salary. But they believe that those who actually put the bite on someone for money should be unpaid.

So they fired the President, Marvin B. Scott, who was a Houk-booster, and they fired me, too. Actually I saw the handwriting on the wall and put out my resume to colleges in a warmer clime – ending up working for Claude Rhea, President of Palm Beach Atlantic College in West Palm Beach. I came to interview for the vacant Chairman of the Marketing and Management job, and I will never forget meeting Dr. Rhea and his number 2 man Foster Harwell. We talked about my qualifications for the faculty, and then Dr. Rhea said to Harwell “Would you excuse us, I would like to talk to Dr. Houk alone for a moment.” Harwell left the room and Rhea said “Were you the person who wrote me this letter six months ago?” He pulled my Harvester Plan suggestions.

When I admitted that I had, he said something like “where has this idea been all my life” and hired me on the spot. I got my salary as a Faculty member, and also a salary from the President’s office for Development Assistance. He just loved the idea of using members of the financial community to raise funds for the college, and be compensated on a results basis. But the Chairman of his Board said, “No.” Then tragically Dr. Rhea died, and Foster Harwell who had probably been waiting for this chance since he was dismissed from my early meeting with Rhea said, “If I thought that anyone was being paid to raise funds from my gift to the college, I’d spit in his eye.”

This is clearly elitist, and erroneous, but what can you do? I mean – they pay the President, and the Janitor, and the entire rest of the college, but they balk at compensating fund raisers. It just doesn’t make sense. Especially in view of the fact that money is the life blood of the entire organization. No dreams will be realized without money. But I just picked up my paycheck and walked away.

Consulting Work and Teaching

Continuing to “tent-make” by picking up consulting work and courses; a brief sojourn at Warner Southern College, in Lake Wales, Florida. Then, following the deposed president of Warner Southern Leroy Fulton to a new post as #2 man in Pacific Christian College in Fullerton, California, I continued to share my expertise in fund-raising with whoever wanted to listen.

But with all the charities I talked with, there would always be some who liked the idea of Financial Professionals raising funds for them and being compensated, and there would always be one or two (usually clerical or professional) who didn’t. Charities, being conservative, don’t move if there is any opposition. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s frustrating when you have a good idea and you know it will be great for the client, but he just doesn’t buy it.

My Mom is Declining

So I determined to spend as much time with my mother as I could. She was 86 and was having a series of mini-strokes that left her less able to take care of herself. I stayed with her in my childhood home in Sea Island, Georgia, and became part of the round-the-clock caregiving team. I would generally substitute teach in the Brunswick City school system during the day and be with her every evening, then fly up to Washington, DC to be with Mixie on the weekend. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life; my mother, who had never needed me before (wealth insulates) finally did.

National Heritage Foundation is Reborn

During what we might call the “Georgia period” in my life I was contacted by several people who knew the direction that the organization I had started as National Heritage Foundation (which as I said was then and is now being called National Foundation, Inc.) was heading. And they did not like it. The company was gentrifying. To gentrify, at least in this situation, was to keep out the little guy and go for the rich. They had increased the threshold (the amount it cost to begin the foundation) nearly ten times the amount I had pioneered. As I studied what they were doing, and as I compared it to my dream of making foundations at NHF available to people who were wealthy (and could use that wealth for charitable purposes) as well as to people who were not wealthy (but who had a dream and could raise funds) I was determined to re-enter the arena.

I swear I never lost the dream. I was, and would have continued to be, content to let someone else carry it onward. I was not lurking in the shadows waiting for an opportunity to pounce. But in Georgia, I had time on my hands and tossed a corporation called National Heritage Foundation into the hopper.

Back in Business

In designing NHF this time around, I took care to avoid the mistakes of the past.

• a. Family Control. I did not need any new ideas. And I was not going to sit persons on the Board who did not catch the spark. Both with the Vantage Ten Ninety Mutual Fund, and with the “old” National Heritage Foundation, I put persons on the Board who had the clout and the name, but not the vision. Although the “new” NHF has a prestigious Board of Regents, NHF is controlled by a Board of six, currently Mixie, my son Tick and his wife Julie, plus three Board members that have no family connections.
  
  b. Low Overhead. I have taken some shots over this. There are those who don’t think a new business can succeed unless you take your early losses and build a prestigious administrative headquarters by going into debt or spending capital. Not for me. As you might guess from my reading about my background on the tennis circuit, it was Fords and Motel 6, not Cadillacs and Hiltons.
  
  c. Total Personal Stewardship. Since my kids were grown and successful, I thought I should more obviously “walk the walk,” if I was going to “talk the talk.” So, having already given some of my property to Mixie so that she might have some financial independence if I died, I gave the balance of my property to charity. Specifically, the charity that I had started – National Heritage Foundation.

And believe me, I have heard the other side lecture on how dangerous it is to give all your funds away. “What if you get cancer,” etc. “It’s just not prudent.” The amount I gave away was actually not all that much. If my dad had not gone through bankruptcy in 1948 with his endeavor to start the Tidewater Plywood Company, I suppose I would have had a lot more. But the important thing was–like the woman Jesus saw putting two pennies in the collection plate–it was all I had.

The Joy of Giving

Until you have personally experienced it, you will never understand how I feel. The joy, the freedom. I am certain it is kin to the way the alcoholic or the drug addict feels when they finally free themselves from the clutches of alcohol or drugs. I am free of money. I can’t even put my feelings down in this computer. And, when the wisdom of this world says, “Get all you can and can all you get” (Earn and Keep), my reading of First Corinthians 3:19 says, “The wisdom of this world is foolishness – for God has chosen the foolish things of the world (like me giving away all my money) to shame the wise.”

Joy of giving! Let me tell you, I have it all the time. Even when I drive past the Mason District Government Center at tax time and see the sandwich-board sign they put in the front: “Don’t forget to pay your property taxes by September 8,” I drive by and smile. “No property,” I say to myself.

And to make matters better, there is that period of time between December 31 to April 15 every year when I was thinking about my taxes: Shall I deduct this or that? What about the “office in home?” What new wrinkles or changes have they introduced? What can I itemize? Who could help me? Do I need to pay estimated tax? What about capital gains? Now I drive by the H&R Block office and smile: “No income,” I say to myself.

And that is almost true. I take six dollars an hour from NHF, which, with my social security pay of $986 per month, yields a net $1,700 per month. I actually look for things to give this money to. I love to give. Absolutely. I try to give away at least $1,000 per month. I keep a collection of hotel soaps. (Although I have to admit I take expenses as needed when I am on a NHF trip.) And again, I say I haven’t missed a meal. And anyone who eats with me will know that I generally pick up the check for everyone. That’s fun.

And that keeps me going. I know that there is joy in giving and I know that you can find it, but only if you allow yourself to experience giving. Once you pop you can’t stop (Pringles potato chips ad). Once you begin a life of giving, you will want to do more. And you, too, will find joy.

‘Nuff preaching! But seriously, folks. The thing that excites me as much as giving is the realization that ALL CULTURES AND PHILOSOPHIES EXTOL GIVING. This is not just a Christian or a Jewish thing, but a Moslem, Buddhist, and a Hindu thing as well. It is indeed the golden thread that can bind us all together, on this rapidly shrinking blue marble.

We Buy a Good Deal of NFI Back

If I had not donated a bunch of money to begin NHF, I would not have said, “Yes” to Dave Keysling’s unexpected question. Dave was President of National Foundation Inc. (NFI). Since I had come back into the business, many of the former “foundations at NHF” were coming back “home” to me at NHF. Dave surprised me by saying, “Are you sitting down?” “Yes.” “Well, I haven’t checked with my board, but if they are in favor; would you like to purchase some of our smaller foundations?” “Yes!”

I suspect the Board of NFI were a bit sorry that they had thrown me out of the saddle in 1982, and that they had not invited me back in 1987 after they won the battle in court. Anyway, they agreed, and in September of 1995, NHF bought back the management contract of 216 of our smaller foundations, with combined assets of about $2.5 million. It gave us instant credibility, and we grew rapidly after that.

Quo Vadis

As Paul the Apostle reportedly asked a friend traveling in the opposite direction on the Appian Way outside of Rome, “Quo vadis?” you might ask, “Where are we going?” Well, until our energy and money are gone, we are going in the direction of building the financial strength of our private charitable sector, so that it will be able to take its place alongside the commercial and the government sector. We need, and this effort will provide, more balance in the economy. We need what this plan offers: more person-to-person assistance.

NHF likes to use the motto, “For every hurt there is a helper.” Our watchverse, Hebrews 10:23 is, “Let us encourage one another to love and good works.” And of course I don’t differentiate between love and good works. I think they are one and the same. James says, “Faith without works is dead… By with my works I will show you my faith.”

Another motto that we at NHF like is, “A foundation at NHF is love in action.” It really is. The focus of our effort is not to raise money for projects but to raise people. Many people say, “Time is money.” We say, “Money is time.” Money, in fact, is time that you have converted to a paycheck. When you share your money with a charitable cause you are actually donating your time. We would much rather, as I have said elsewhere, have the time and talent of the donor than her money.

So, essentially, we are going back to the time in our nation’s history (our national heritage, if you will) when we were actually “our brother’s keeper.” When someone we loved was hurting, we all pitched in to help. A pipe dream? Maybe. But with your help it may become a reality.

 

 

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