Something different this week. Given the season, I wanted to talk about the charities we have been supporting at Behind the Balance Sheet. And I want to explain why I think a portfolio approach might be helpful in a philanthropic endeavour. Below, I tell you about a number of charities which we think are worth your support. The founders of two kindly agreed to do a short interview and you can hear from them in the accompanying video.
A few years ago, I had a plan to launch a charity to teach kids about money. It’s usually the poorest people in society who are disadvantaged by financial scammers (or by legitimate businesses charging usurious interest rates on credit card debt etc). But I was beaten to it by Patrick Jenkins, Deputy Editor of the Financial Times who launched their charity, the Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign or FLIC for short. He tells you more about the charity and what they have achieved in the last few years in the video.
When he was launching, I offered Patrick our support, made a cornerstone donation and advertised the charity in the podcast. We stopped advertising FLIC in the podcast, not because I had any change of heart, but I felt that we could do more good supporting another cause which our listeners weren’t familiar with. And Patrick agreed.
And that cause is very dear to my heart, as you will hear in the video from my conversation with Emily Reuben, co-founder of Duchenne UK, and one of the bravest people I know. I first heard from Emily, sitting at the kitchen counter on a Friday evening, chatting to my wife and enjoying a glass of wine while catching up on my personal emails.
Emily was one of the mums at school – our kids were 4 or 5 and she explained that her son Eli suffered from Duchenne, a muscle wasting disease, which meant that he would soon be walking with sticks, then would be in a wheelchair and would have a life expectancy of 25 years. I have never before cried on reading an email, but that one moved me to tears – it could have been my son.
I emailed Emily and asked what I could do to help and of course all I could do then was to donate. But now I have the platform and I can help tell the world about this terrible disease. And Emily explains this very eloquently in this video.
FT FLIC Is teaming up with Magic Breakfast this Christmas, another charity our family have supported, so you can generate a double benefit.
Many of you will know that I recently interviewed Anthony Bolton in front of a live audience at The Library of Mistakes in Edinburgh. It’s a free-to-use, open-to-all library dedicated to the study of financial history, with an outreach and education programme that includes courses, events and podcasts.
The Library was founded by Russell Napier and is part of the wider Didasko charity, which depends on donations and supports financial education from schools right through to research of the highest level – projects include Future Asset, which encourages schoolgirls from all backgrounds to take up careers in the finance sector, Leavers’ Money Skills, which teaches schoolchildren the basics of managing finances, and they also incubated the Market Mind Hypothesis, an academic research programme looking into the links between neuroscience, philosophy and market behaviour.
Regular readers will know that I really enjoy the Sohn London Conference each year. The original conference in New York honoured the memory of Ira Sohn, a talented Wall Street professional whose life was cut short when he passed away from cancer at the age of 29.
Ira’s friends and family founded The Sohn Conference Foundation in New York City in 1995 and it supports cutting-edge medical research, state-of-the-art research equipment, and innovative programs. The original Sohn Investment Conference in New York has inspired investment leaders across the globe to launch partner Sohn conferences and unite the financial community to support a number of charitable causes. To date, The Sohn Conference Foundation has raised more than $90 million.
The team in London work really hard, do a great job and deserve your support.
Earlier this year, I interviewed Peter Cowley, who was dying of cancer and who is the unluckiest person I have ever met. He encountered 8 setbacks in his life, any one of which would have floored me. Not one but two of his three sons committed suicide.
I know two people who have recently been touched by the suicide of a child or a partner and it’s devastating. Peter (who died a few weeks ago) supported PAPYRUS, Prevention of Young Suicide, a UK charity dedicated to the prevention of suicide and the promotion of positive mental health and emotional wellbeing in young people.
Suicide is the biggest killer of people aged 35 and under in the UK and many are preventable. The charity was founded in 1997 by a group of bereaved parents, who had each lost children to suicide. I cannot think of anything worse.
I mentioned earlier a portfolio approach and I think of FLIC and Duchenne as akin to value and growth investments. FLIC is like Warren Buffett’s one foot bar – it’s pretty easy to effect change and to ensure that people don’t get caught in basic financial scams (like paying 30%+ APR on credit card debt) because they don’t understand the basics of money and compound interest. It’s a stock on a low single digit P/E with a yield and it almost can’t fail to be a good investment.
Duchenne is riskier – the money donated may not have the impact I hope of finding a cure for Eli. But we have to try to save poor Eli and kids like him (I know another parent in a similar position). So it’s a VC style growth investment which might turn out to be a 100-bagger, but it may not.
And I like the idea of a portfolio approach to giving – with FLIC, I know my money will benefit somebody. With Duchenne, I know I am giving Eli a chance. With The Library of Mistakes, I am helping to further financial education. With PAPYRUS, it’s a worthwhile endeavour, if even one young life is saved.
I was inspired this year by Peter Cowley. And at a recent Christmas party, I met a university friend of a dear friend of mine. He explained that he was a missionary - it turned out he was the father of another friend of mine. The odds of that happening are incredibly long. I am going to visit him in the New Year to learn more about the charity he founded and which I hope to support next year. I know already that it’s going to be an inspiring visit.
I am fortunate to be in a position to help these worthy people and causes in a small way. But I have this platform which creates leverage and I hope you don’t mind my using it in this way.
I know many of you will feel compelled to support one of these causes. It will do some good and it will definitely make you feel good.
Thanks for your support.
Have a fabulous holiday season.
See you in 2025!
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