Hedge Fund Women Boost Nonprofits
(Bloomberg News) The annual fundraiser for the female hedge-fund executives of High Water Women Foundation features Texas Hold 'Em.
Women make up about 90% of individual ticket buyers and half of the attendees. The proceeds from the organization's annual fundraiser, which began as a wine tasting, have more than doubled from $200,000 six years ago to $556,000 last year. This year's event was held April 15.
It's one of many indications that women donors are becoming significant financial boosters for nonprofits.
"Our female members are not only supportive in getting their friends and co-workers involved, but they also write checks," said Kathleen Kelley, High Water Women's co-founder and portfolio manager for global macro investments at Kingdon Capital Management LLC.
A telephone survey by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University released in 2010 shows that U.S. women who are single heads of households are more likely to donate to charity than their male counterparts.
At three salary levels-$100,000 or more, $23,000 to $43,000, and less than $23,000-women are inclined to give double the amount that men give for the first two and almost twice as much for the last.
The Phoenix, Ariz.-based Make-A-Wish Foundation of America is launching a new "Women for Wishes" club in New York to identify women donors who will help recruit more women to its patron base. A survey conducted by the charity last year showed that more than half of its 600,000 active donors are women, Elizabeth LaBorde, Make-A-Wish's vice president of resource development, said by phone.
The $3 million that High Water Women has raised from donations and its poker tournaments has been distributed to nonprofits such as Women in Need Inc., which provides shelter to homeless women in New York, and Harlem's Iris House Inc., which aids mothers and children living with AIDS and the HIV virus.
Kelley said she hopes the poker tournament will continue to expand its ranks of patrons.
"If I want to make the world a better place, the causes that need funding will have the face of a woman or a child," Kelley said. "Those are the scenarios where there's real suffering and real inequality."
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