For most of his career, investment strategist Claude Rosenberg helped clients make money. Now, he wants to help them give it away.
In prosperous times, people can and should give more to charity, Rosenberg asserts. But how much more? The traditional concept of tithing--contributing a flat 10 percent of one's income--is "outdated, outmoded and unfair," he contends. The problem today, he says, is that people have no practical guidelines to identify levels of giving that are both affordable and generous for their financial circumstances. To provide that guidance, Rosenberg launched a nonprofit service in 1998 called NewTithing Group.
With the new venture, which he funds himself, the retired founder of the $60 billion Rosenberg Capital Management "is attempting to mobilize the consciousness and the consciences of wealth holders," observed Boston sociologist Paul Schervish in a 1999 New York Times article.
The San Francisco-based NewTithing Group charts philanthropic trends and offers an on-line calculator, NewTithingCalc, to help individuals determine their optimum giving levels. The unique calculator embodies Rosenberg's belief that charitable giving should reflect not only a person's income but also his or her assets. Take, for instance, someone with an annual income of $100,000, plus $200,000 in investment assets and $24,000 in annual expenses. NewTithingCalc proposes an annual donation of $13,597, with an out-of-pocket cost of donation (due to tax savings) of $10,067. What about someone with the same income and expenses but investment assets of $2 million? The suggested annual donation is $55,913, with an out-of-pocket cost of donation of $34,056. The calculator also projects the effect of an individual's contributions on his or her capital, allowing people to budget for charitable donations much as they do for retirement savings.
The calculator is featured on the group's website (www.newtithing.org), along with tips for maximizing tax savings from donations and evaluating the efficiency of a given charitable organization. Rosenberg doesn't recommend any specific organizations, but he does advise people to explore efforts and causes they're passionate about, so that, in his words, "they get their kicks out of philanthropy."
Rosenberg, not surprisingly, is a model philanthropist himself. He and his wife, Louise, support numerous public and private institutions and founded the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. They have received such honors as United Way's de Tocqueville Award and the Outstanding Philanthropist Award from the National Society of Fund-Raising Executives.
"Philanthropy is not just giving--it's investing in your community, in the future of your family and your children," says the 72-year-old grandfather of eight. He also emphasizes "the importance of now." Given America's current affluence, Rosenberg says, we need to address some of the nation's pressing ills--such as poverty, drug abuse and the state of public education--while we can. "Think about it," he says. "If you have a leaky roof, you don't wait until the rainy season to fix it."
--Leslie Talmadge, '86
