Business and charity are a match made in heaven. It’s time to start acting like it.
As responsible business leaders, we care about society and the future of our children. But charitable giving often becomes relegated to a corner where it is all too easily forgotten or sidestepped.
I believe such a culture is outdated. Charitable giving is a social good, but it’s also a personal one. And thanks to the innovative model of Invest For Kids, the culture of charity in business is beginning to change for the better.
Invest For Kids, founded by Ron Levin and Ben Kovler, is an organization on a mission to show that charitable giving is an opportunity for social and personal advancement. Every year, Ron and Ben bring some of the best and brightest minds in investment management to Chicago for a one-day conference, where cutting-edge ideas are exchanged and discussed.
The donation that attendees give to listen in is then given to local organizations that benefit children. And because Invest for Kids underwrites all of the costs of hosting the conference on its own dime, the donations have even more impact.
The money that’s raised stays in the community, and it changes lives – and attendees leave with both irreplaceable investment knowledge and the awareness that they have helped change the lives of Chicago children.
This year, Perspectives was chosen as one of the recipients of funds from the conference. I cannot overstate the importance of such generosity and the real impact that Invest For Kids has. Its approach is revolutionary, and reminds me of what we must teach young people. The skills that we teach at Perspectives are centered around excellence, pragmatism, and generosity – skills that I see perfectly mirrored in the business model of Invest For Kids.
Built on reciprocity
What is so unique and so admirable about the way Ron and Ben have set up their organization is that it is built on reciprocity – something that teaches that social good is, indeed, personally beneficial. The money that the attendees of its conference in Chicago spend goes to small local organizations where it will have the most impact.
But for that money, the attendees receive five hours of cutting-edge investing wisdom from some of the most brilliant minds in the field. This is social entrepreneurship at its finest – a charitable giving model that not only gives to children in need, but gives its donors a chance to personally succeed.
Ron Levin explains it best, saying that “Invest For Kids encourages the nature of business charity to become innovative – to showcase the good that giving can do for not only recipients, but for donors themselves.”
This seamless integration truly encourages charity and generosity to become second-nature in our business circles, which is good because the culture of charity is ready for change. The world is full of opportunities for our businesses to open themselves up to social good, and for that opening to help them advance, too. We’ll be much better off once we start embracing the model that Ron and Ben have pioneered – and our children will thank us.
Diana Shulla-Cose is founder and president at Perspectives Charter Schools.
