Philanthropy has loomed large in my life since I started “Hedge Funds Care/Help for Children” toward the end of 1998. At the time my goal was to simply see if I had it in me to pull together a party of people I’d met at conferences and meetings in my industry, to raise money for the prevention and treatment of child abuse. It turned out to be a really great party, and today HFC is a global movement with chapters in twelve cities and six countries. As of this writing more than $46 million has been donated globally to programs dedicated to saving children from the trauma of abuse. So it has been a rewarding and wonderful Journey that I will be writing more about.
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It is extremely gratifying to know that an intention I had in 1998 to do something good, has resulted in an international movement to protect children from the physical, psychological and emotional ravages of abuse and neglect. In truth, the impulse came from my dissatisfaction with myself, my sense that up to that point I had done little or nothing of a charitable nature, other than writing a check here and there, to be a good role model for my children or anyone else. As I sat at my desk one Sunday evening in the early Fall of 1998, looking over the weekend issue of the Wall Streed Journal, I read an article that vilified the entire hedge fund industry because of the Long Term Capital debacle that had just unfolded. I thought it was a very unfair depiction, as I was quite sure that LTC was not at all representative of the HF industry at large. The idea struck me that someone should use that article, and the volumes of other negative press being reported, to compel the industry to come together and raise money for a good cause, thus contributing toward rehabilitating It’s poor image, and actually doing something good! I looked in the mirror and decided that person should be ME! The next day I went to my office and told Steve Vermut and Glen Dailey who I worked for, that I wanted to see if I could pull together a party of industry people I’d met during the time we’d been working together in the prime brokerage business and explained why. They instantly gave me not only their blessing, but also their commitment to take the first table. Thus was life breathed into the organization which now can be found and described in great detail at http://www.HFC.org. For a number of reasons, the issue of child abuse and neglect had long been the cause that I found the most compelling of all, the one I could get passionate about in asking others to get Involved. It has been the laser focus of HFC ever since.