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| Building Your Family's 100 Year Plan: The Series |
100 Year Plan Part III: The Practice of Charity
Brett Anderson and Thomas M. Kostigen
02/02/2004
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"Venture philanthropy is one of the trends that is becoming more prominent," adds Karey Dye, vice president of the Investment Management Division at Goldman Sachs. "We actually do have a few clients who, when they stop operating their businesses, turn to actual operating foundations more than family grant-making foundations, where they try to accomplish specific objectives."
 This class of entrepreneurial philanthropists includes (in addition to the late Dorothy Chand-ler) individuals like Lee Iacocca, who established the Iacocca Foundation after his wife’s death from Type 1 diabetes. Since that time, he and his family have, through the foundation, poured more than $20 million into promising research programs around the world. "The Iacocca family has a real passion about diabetes," notes Steenhuysen, "and [in November 2003], they announced that they may have found a cure for the disease, which many people said could never happen. They’ve been involved for over 20 years. You have to be very engaged to have that kind of desire to become experts and focus on achieving a specific result."
By contrast, the first category views its philanthropic activities as one of several components of an overall identity. "Philanthropy is an expression for these families," explains Steenhuysen. "Their political involvement is an expression. If they own operating businesses, that’s an expression, too, as is their family office. All of these entities vie for first place as the family’s identity. We can pick out a political family—the Kennedys; the Rockefellers with their giving; the S.C. Johnsons for their business; and the Laird-Nortons in Washington state for their family office. All of these
are candidates for leading identities."
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