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Lisa Aramony | Emmett
Carson | Trish Millines Dziko
Chris Farrell | Tracy
Gary | Bill
George | Scott D. Oki
Claude Rosenberg | Paul G. Schervish
Lisa Aramony
As Director, Corporate Relations of America Online, Inc.
and Director, AOL Foundation, Lisa Aramony's focus is on building
capacity for nonprofits through the effective and strategic
use of interactive technology. For the past two years she
has led the creation of Helping.org,
the premier online philanthropy portal. Prior to working with
the AOL Foundation, Aramony held positions within AOL concentrating
on marketing, communications, and e-commerce development.
Dr. Emmett Carson
As president and CEO of the Minneapolis
Foundation, Carson spearheads grantmaking, fund development,
loan making, and investment management of one of the largest
American community foundations. Since his arrival in 1994, the
foundation has embarked on a 10-year, $20 million initiative
to improve the lives of children and families in poverty, raised
record annual gifts ($46 million in fiscal year 1999) and increased
total assets under management from $186 million to more than
$400 million.
He has also worked for the Ford Foundation, authored several
books and articles, and conducted a pioneering study on the
how race effects philanthropy.
(Read more about Emmett Carson in the Sharing
the Wealth Five-Step Guide)
Trish Millines Dziko
Thanks to her economic success at Microsoft, Trish Millines
Dziko has set to help bridge the digital divide. She believes
providing technical training and education to children of color
will allow them more meaningful careers. In 1996, she and Jill
Hull created the Technology
Access Foundation.
"This is not about charity. It's about business. It's
not just preparing kids for the future but providing corporations
with a group of diverse, highly trained people to fill technical
jobs," explains Millines Dziko. Their focus is as an
umbrella organization supporting technology education that
also provides equipment and volunteers for programs helping
children of color learn more about technology. She will give
a call to action informed by her personal experience of bridging
the digital divide.
Chris Farrell
Chris Farrell is chief economics correspondent at Minnesota
Public Radio. Each week on Sound
Money, a nationally distributed personal finance program,
he offers a user-friendly analysis of economic and financial
news and takes calls from listeners. Farrell is also a journalist
with American RadioWorks,
the award-winning documentary collaboration between MPR and
National Public Radio. He is a contributing economics editor
at Business Week magazine and host of public television's
personal finance show Right on the Money.
Tracy Gary
When Tracy Gary realized women's issues were being ignored
by philanthropists, she rallied women to create funds aimed
specifically at women and children's issues. Now funding raised
by and targeted for all kinds of interest groups is growing
dramatically. What positive forces and challenges does this
kind of giving and funding raise for the philanthropic sector?
With more than 25 years experience as a donor-activist and
philanthropist, Gary is a keen observer of the philanthropic
landscape and well-equipped to help us answer that question.
She has started more than a dozen nonprofit organizations,
(including the highly influential Women's Fund) and is the
national director of Resourceful
Women in San Francisco. The Resourceful Women group is
80 women with combined assets of more than $2 billion.
They donate about $30 million each year to "socially progressive"
causes. Gary counsels donors on the most effective ways to
give. "What I see again and again among the rich is that they
feel anxious - worried that it's all going to go away and
that it can't be replaced," says Gary.
Bill George
In 1969, Bill George and his family moved to the Twin Cities
with little wealth. Over the years, George built up the Medtronic
corporation, a successful Minnesota-based medical technology
company. Through the George
Family Foundation, he aims to give back to the community
from which his success grew.
The George Family Foundation is different from most private
foundations - the Georges are not interested in slowly doling
out their wealth. Making an impact today is a driving principle
for the Georges' philanthropy, which is why Bill and his wife
Penny don't plan to leave a large amount of wealth to their
children. "If our dollars can go to correct society's
problems now, it can do a lot more good than if it sits in
a estate," George says. "We’d rather see all
of the funds being used today."
Scott D. Oki
Scott Oki has taken a winding path into the world of philanthropy.
From his childhood in a lower-middle income background, to the
Air Force band, to the classroom, Oki spent several years figuring
out what to do. Eventually, he got his degree in computer science
and later a master’s degree in business. Oki flirted with
venture capitalism and eventually moved on to work for Hewlett
Packard. Finally, he found a home at Microsoft. In charge of
foreign sales, he took his entrepreneurial skills to turn Microsoft
into the dominant software developer internationally, as well
as domestically.
Similarly, Mr. Oki brought his business sense into the world of charitable
giving. In 1997, he retired from Microsoft a multimillionaire.
He co-founded Social
Venture Partners, and works on 18 nonprofit boards. His
own Oki Foundation has given Oki the opportunity to take his
business experience and apply it to the world of charitable
giving. It is his belief that an entrepreneurial focus is
vital to today’s philanthropic endeavors. He will tell
how venture philanthropy is changing giving in America.
Claude Rosenberg
Nearly 20 years after Claude Rosenberg founded RCM Capital Management,
he created the Newtithing Group.
He researches methods to increase charitable donations, without
hurting personal financial growth. His book, Wealthy and
Wise: How You and American Can Get the Most Out of Your Giving,
has been hailed as one of the most comprehensive analyses of
national wealth and is widely considered to be a blueprint showing
how greater donations can meet America’s pressing societal
needs.
Paul G. Schervish
Paul Schervish has crunched the numbers that show how massive
the transfer of wealth will be over the next 50 years. Combining
that statistical knowledge with some 20 years of studying why
the wealthy give or don't give, Schevish, Professor of Sociology
and Director of the Social
Welfare Research Institute at Boston College, provides a
rich overview of philanthropy and its challenges in these prosperous
times. With the estimated wealth transfer over the next 50 years
hovering around $100 trillion, Americans will be faced with
an increased capacity to give. Whether or not they follow through
with these philanthropic endeavors is the topic of research
Schervish explores.
Schervish explains his research this way: "The understanding
of 'wealth' is being redefined, and with that comes a shift
on how much money is given away and the reasons behind the
giving. People are coming into wealth at an earlier age, yet
many don't have the experience or wisdom on how to make responsible
donations." His recent book, Millionaires and the Millennium:
New Estimates of the Forthcoming Wealth Transfer and the Prospects
for a Golden Age of Philanthropy, is an in-depth look
at America's projected massive transfer of wealth and its
affects on charitable giving. Results of his extensive research
on what causes Americans to give will be shared at the summit.
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