Risk & Business Magazine CMW Insurance Fall 2015 | Page 19

What is Altruvest and how did you get involved? Another one of the life planning processes I suggest is making a list of everything you would want to do before you pass on. There is also a subsection to that of making a list of things that you want to look back on in your life and see that you’ve accomplished as you lie on your deathbed. The question would be, “If I were to lie on my deathbed, I’m going to look back and see…” A goal of mine that I set out many years ago was to create a charitable foundation that would help make the world a better place through breaking the cycles of poverty for many generations to come. That’s all types of poverty. When I sold my first business in 1992 with the goal of creating enough time and money to start this charitable foundation, the burning question became how do we help charities become better at giving more effectively, more efficiently, or just more in the aggregate. In asking that question and working through the courses that I did with the leaders from the charitable sector, I came to understand and learn that charities really have a lot to offer business leaders and business leaders have a lot to offer charities. The idea of Altruvest was to build a bridge between the charitable sector and the business sector such that the business leaders can provide support, help, and resources to the charitable sector, and the charitable sector can help provide purpose and direction for contributions in the charitable arena to help make the world a better place. Altruvest was born to focus on the potential of building that bridge between charities and businesses. The programs that Altruvest runs are focused on where we see the most leverage in that area which is helping improve board governance and improve the potential of business leaders and other professional leaders to contribute to charities through providing the time, treasure, and talent at the board level, and to help board governance become more effective so that charitable leaders have the support of their board in being able to support their organization into giving more. Altruvest matches business and professional leaders onto the boards and charities they’re passionate about and helps charities find leaders for their boards that can bring skill sets like marketing, finance, and stra ѕ