As of 2:40pm Eastern the Dow Jones is tanking yet again, down 204 points - on the heels of the worst week on Wall Street since the Great Depression. It's a great time to announce a multibillion dollar campaign! And last week, the day the Dow dropped over 400 points, or the day after when it put 400 points back - whatever - U. C. Berkeley did just that - kicking off a $5 billion campaign - with almost $2 billion already committed.
Do they know something we don't? Actually not. Even affluent people can lose out in a tough economy because they spend or invest right up to, and over, their affluence. But those with accreted wealth spread their investments around. They are the people who are Berkeley's best prospects as they would be and are in any serious philanthropic venture.
Is the collapse of Wall Street as we knew it, or discerning Governor Palin's view of the Laffer curve relevant to anything? British painter Damien Hirst sold $200 million worth of art at auction last week, no problem. The Sunday New York Times events page pictured folks all gussied up- preening at openings here, galas there, business as usual, with serious money raised.
I've had two meetings today with charities. We talked about meeting budgets by raising money - and not about the economy which, like the weather, we can do nothing about.
Goldman, Sachs has survived. Treasury secretary Henry Paulson was their CEO. Separate, unrelated facts. Profit remains privatized. Congress is about to socialize Wall Street's losses but not health care. President Bush - well what about him?
Up your meds and take a look at the new Giving USA Foundation's "Spotlight" publication by copying and pasting this into your browser. file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Henry%20Goldstein/My%20Documents/MyFiles1/Giving%20Institute/SPOTLIGHT/Spotlight%20%233%202008_Final.pdf
Monday, September 22, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
(United) Way To Go!
Is United Way (finally) getting it right?
The old formula was distribution driven: collect money on behalf of a number of UW accredited human service agencies and then distribute it across the board according to a formula, saving employers and employees(who were enrolled through payroll deductions at work) from selecting and vetting the beneficiaries directly.
Over time a number of things happened:
- Big manufacturing had the largest employee groups. Most of those jobs went away.
- Charities like Planned Parenthood, groups serving the abject poor and the hardest to reach; grass roots organizations and others whose missions were broader than or combined more than human services alone (education, arts in the community, immigration, HIV-AIDS etc.) were generally left out of United Way and as the government's combined federal campaign grew in importance (state and federal employees being another large work force component - jobs that couldn't be outsourced for the most part)successfully challenged the UW throttle hold on work place solicitation.
- Like the Red Cross the UW brand was compromised by multiple scandals at national and local levels. It didn't help that the Red Cross - a major UW beneficiary - was decomposing before our very eyes.
- UW developed a major gifts competency over time through establishing the popular De Tocqueville societies at United Way around the country for donors at $10,000 and up. Traditionally UW eschewed major gifts from individuals asserting that such solicitations should better be left to their member agencies who were in fact least capable of generating them. The unintended consequence of this really good idea has been that many major donors wanted to designate their gifts, a proposition long resisted by UW because it wanted to have the distribution power.
No doubt other societal influences played in. But the welcome result is that UW around the country has recognized that it had to do its business a new way if charitable dollars were going to get where they are needed most. Three weeks ago a big story in the Chronicle of Philanthropy headlined the new approach: prioritizing giving to "focus on helping young people, increasing financial stability for poor families and preventing domestic abuse."
The story goes on to underscore that "such scenarios are playing out across the country as United Ways make changes that are altering the fund raising landscape." New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area are two places where big changes are on the drawing boards.
These new initiatives are not without serious challenges. Cherry-picking among programs within nonprofit agencies, United Ways deciding on their own what the priorities should be, and most of all faced with raising new money over the old - because the basic UW safety net must still be kept in good repair in a struggling economy - make for a tough script.
But I believe this is absolutely the right thing for United Way to do because for a long time now I have been wondering if charitable dollars are really getting where they're needed most. I have prevailed on Giving USA Foundation to sponsor a discussion on this and in the next blog I'll tell you about the Gurin Forum we're doing in New York in December.
The old formula was distribution driven: collect money on behalf of a number of UW accredited human service agencies and then distribute it across the board according to a formula, saving employers and employees(who were enrolled through payroll deductions at work) from selecting and vetting the beneficiaries directly.
Over time a number of things happened:
- Big manufacturing had the largest employee groups. Most of those jobs went away.
- Charities like Planned Parenthood, groups serving the abject poor and the hardest to reach; grass roots organizations and others whose missions were broader than or combined more than human services alone (education, arts in the community, immigration, HIV-AIDS etc.) were generally left out of United Way and as the government's combined federal campaign grew in importance (state and federal employees being another large work force component - jobs that couldn't be outsourced for the most part)successfully challenged the UW throttle hold on work place solicitation.
- Like the Red Cross the UW brand was compromised by multiple scandals at national and local levels. It didn't help that the Red Cross - a major UW beneficiary - was decomposing before our very eyes.
- UW developed a major gifts competency over time through establishing the popular De Tocqueville societies at United Way around the country for donors at $10,000 and up. Traditionally UW eschewed major gifts from individuals asserting that such solicitations should better be left to their member agencies who were in fact least capable of generating them. The unintended consequence of this really good idea has been that many major donors wanted to designate their gifts, a proposition long resisted by UW because it wanted to have the distribution power.
No doubt other societal influences played in. But the welcome result is that UW around the country has recognized that it had to do its business a new way if charitable dollars were going to get where they are needed most. Three weeks ago a big story in the Chronicle of Philanthropy headlined the new approach: prioritizing giving to "focus on helping young people, increasing financial stability for poor families and preventing domestic abuse."
The story goes on to underscore that "such scenarios are playing out across the country as United Ways make changes that are altering the fund raising landscape." New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area are two places where big changes are on the drawing boards.
These new initiatives are not without serious challenges. Cherry-picking among programs within nonprofit agencies, United Ways deciding on their own what the priorities should be, and most of all faced with raising new money over the old - because the basic UW safety net must still be kept in good repair in a struggling economy - make for a tough script.
But I believe this is absolutely the right thing for United Way to do because for a long time now I have been wondering if charitable dollars are really getting where they're needed most. I have prevailed on Giving USA Foundation to sponsor a discussion on this and in the next blog I'll tell you about the Gurin Forum we're doing in New York in December.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Their (Red) Cross To Bear
"The Red Cross is struggling with how to pay
for aid to storm victims."
-- Wall Street Journal, 5 September
I'm sure they are.
Having squandered the brand, having lost the confidence of many philanthropically inclined folks, having demonstrated incompetence at the highest levels (board and top management) having run with neither transparency nor accountability - why should they expect the public to pony up?
The Red Cross logo is probably the best known icon in the world; for years all they had to do was flash the cross if they needed money -or even if they didn't and through United Way participation* or direct chapter based solicitation the American public responded - with money and blood, literally.
Many US and international charities see their contribution revenues spike during crises like floods, earthquakes, war, forest fires, etc. only to see their fund raising bottom out in between. So the Red Cross's strategy was to raise as much money as possible at the peak, salt away as much as possible in reserve for later catastrophes, and pay out for the current appeal as moderately as possible. That actually is not a bad plan. The problem is that they failed - consistently - to tell their donors this. They now tell the truth. At least in the small print. Some of the time.
The red Cross's lack of candor brought more scrutiny and surfaced serious management problems at both the national and chapter levels. At the national CEOs turned over rapidly. A made-for-the-tabloids sex scandal knocked off the former head of the IRS who had just been hired; and his predecessor, an accomplished naval executive, couldn't hack it with the board. Questions kept coming up about the security of the blood supply, the Red Cross's ability to turn fast in a crisis, and ongoing misunderstanding about where the money went.
The Red Cross is now in make-over mode and the jury's out. But in my view the best they will do is paper over their problems. The Red Cross began as one of just a few federally chartered organizations, a good idea at the time. But federalism brought with it the right of the president to appoint a number of board members who, like other presidential appointments of either party, did not necessarily rise to a level of much quality. Like many ambassadorships or other federal sinecures an appointment was often a thank you for services rendered elsewhere.
The poor attendance of these so-called public members at board meetings also helped to concentrate power in management - for better or worse - and also magnifies the accountability problem.
The Red Cross business model is antiquated. I can see two possible solutions to their dilemma. First the federal government could take over completely - funding all existing Red Cross functions. Given FEMA this option may fail to excite some readers. But as a federal agency a board of trustees is not required and all the present incumbents can become an "advisory committee."
The second - and highly preferred - option is for the Red Cross to privatize, a very appealing idea for the last eight years, and who knows what portends? I would recommend to either President Obama, or President McCain (it hurts to type that, yes!) this course. It would enable the Red Cross to begin anew by privatizing the board: all presidential appointees kaput; start over. Legislation would be required to change the existing chartering provisions for board appointments.
As I am fond of repeating "fish rots from the head down." In my experience with thousands of nonprofits, 95% of the time, until the board is fixed and fully understands and enforces its responsibility for oversight, management will still not be accountable, actions will still lack transparency, fund raising will still suffer - and most of all public confidence will continue to wane.
(For an earlier Red Cross blog see the January 23rd post).
*Next blog: Is United Way Finally Getting It Right?
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Staff Up
Because most charities are service organizations much of their expense is personnel and one of their critical challenges is attracting, employing and retaining staff - at all levels but especially at the top. And because they are more than anything else mission driven, nonprofits tend to have the most bench strength in program. Other key institutional functions like board development, organizational management, fiscal management,communications and development, i.e., fund raising are in my experience often found wanting.
Because nonprofit organizations have so wildly proliferated since World War II - there are now an estimated 1.4 million non-religious charities in the US alone - it is more difficult than ever to find people. On the scale of difficulty recruiting top management- CEOs,CFOs, marketing and fund raising executives remains a dicey business with high failure rates, low retention and a lot of burned out people (stress is combustible).
As the private nonprofit economy has grown (to more than 10% of the work force) a concomitant parallel development has been the rise of professional associations covering most areas of nonprofit activity. Much of the work of these groups is dedicated to offering in-service education, "credentialing," continuing education credit and a visible labor market. Also graduate degree programs in nonprofit management are now in place at about 50 US colleges and universities and a few have undergraduate majors as well.
Over the years I have had the privilege of working for scores of effective and efficient organizations. On the other hand I have seen some where people are pushed out - or push themselves out of - organizations that are poorly governed, badly managed or worse. Most interesting to me - counterintuitive though it may seem - the efficacy of nonprofit organizations has less to do with money than I used to believe. I recently came across a survey of for-profit businesses that found the number one motivator for most people was not money but working conditions.
In the business world there is usually a management hierarchy that enables a company to vet executives over time trying to push the best to the top And we all understand that doesn't always work). In the nonprofit world there is a search committee; inevitably the size of the search committee is inversely proportional to the caliber of the person ultimately employed. Just as in the nonprofit world there are founder dominated or nepotistic enterprises and in those cultures trouble sidles up. In the nonprofit world the founder hangs on and goes out toes up. In the business world major share owners force the founder out and install professional management. In the nonprofit world it takes a lot for a board to expel a CEO let alone one of their own.
In my view nonprofits have paid less attention to better and best management practices than they might have. That includes management holding the board accountable for oversight,the board holding management responsible for implementing policy and programs, and both parties working together on issues of long term strategic planning, governance, stewardship, asset and revenue growth - as well as transparency, marketing and financial management - including fund raising. Happily these problems make for billable time. Sadly it shouldn't be this way.
Because nonprofit organizations have so wildly proliferated since World War II - there are now an estimated 1.4 million non-religious charities in the US alone - it is more difficult than ever to find people. On the scale of difficulty recruiting top management- CEOs,CFOs, marketing and fund raising executives remains a dicey business with high failure rates, low retention and a lot of burned out people (stress is combustible).
As the private nonprofit economy has grown (to more than 10% of the work force) a concomitant parallel development has been the rise of professional associations covering most areas of nonprofit activity. Much of the work of these groups is dedicated to offering in-service education, "credentialing," continuing education credit and a visible labor market. Also graduate degree programs in nonprofit management are now in place at about 50 US colleges and universities and a few have undergraduate majors as well.
Over the years I have had the privilege of working for scores of effective and efficient organizations. On the other hand I have seen some where people are pushed out - or push themselves out of - organizations that are poorly governed, badly managed or worse. Most interesting to me - counterintuitive though it may seem - the efficacy of nonprofit organizations has less to do with money than I used to believe. I recently came across a survey of for-profit businesses that found the number one motivator for most people was not money but working conditions.
In the business world there is usually a management hierarchy that enables a company to vet executives over time trying to push the best to the top And we all understand that doesn't always work). In the nonprofit world there is a search committee; inevitably the size of the search committee is inversely proportional to the caliber of the person ultimately employed. Just as in the nonprofit world there are founder dominated or nepotistic enterprises and in those cultures trouble sidles up. In the nonprofit world the founder hangs on and goes out toes up. In the business world major share owners force the founder out and install professional management. In the nonprofit world it takes a lot for a board to expel a CEO let alone one of their own.
In my view nonprofits have paid less attention to better and best management practices than they might have. That includes management holding the board accountable for oversight,the board holding management responsible for implementing policy and programs, and both parties working together on issues of long term strategic planning, governance, stewardship, asset and revenue growth - as well as transparency, marketing and financial management - including fund raising. Happily these problems make for billable time. Sadly it shouldn't be this way.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Board Beyond Belief
A board is a flat slab of wood or other material used for some specific purpose. Second it is an organized body set up for a specific purpose: to advise, oversee, govern and exact accountability from a business, a charity, or other type of organization. In some of the boards I've served I can't really tell that there's much difference from the first definition to the second.
But I also think some people who run nonprofits, my area of specialty, have about the board they want or deserve - despite their protestations. In their cups more than one of this type has confided to me that they view their board as an expensive nuisance that contributes less than it should in time, money or smarts and demands more than it should through micro-governance, bird-brained schemes and high maintenance. These executives usually have a poor to awful relationship with their chairperson and other trustees.
The very best boards I've seen are well led at the top and respectful of management. They understand governance, pay attention, show up and are clear in their expectations of management; if not generous to a fault the board members are strong contributors.
The not so good boards are most often founder dominated."Fish rots from the head down," says the ancient proverb. Board members and management go along; no one wants to cross the founder. New ideas and new ways disappear into committees that never meet. Sometimes it is hard to feel the stiletto or even know where it went in.
The best nonprofit CEOs I've worked for have figured out a modus for dealing respectfully and candidly with the board chairperson; they make sure the board's membership rotates and that there is reasonable enforcement of term limits. They are transparent in their dealings with the board, they are accountable, they consult and both offer and seek advice. They are tough-minded and most of all they have humor.
Then there is a vast middle: In the board room tarries people who should have left - toes up or otherwise; often the board is observably passive/aggressive. Meetings are stunningly soporific because of the baffle-them-with-bullshit style of deliberate information overload, incomprehensible financial reports, suffocating detail about the golf event and no time left to discuss "program."
This is the question I ask myself: if this organization's board did not exist what difference would it make? If I'm not sure I have a board beyond belief!
But I also think some people who run nonprofits, my area of specialty, have about the board they want or deserve - despite their protestations. In their cups more than one of this type has confided to me that they view their board as an expensive nuisance that contributes less than it should in time, money or smarts and demands more than it should through micro-governance, bird-brained schemes and high maintenance. These executives usually have a poor to awful relationship with their chairperson and other trustees.
The very best boards I've seen are well led at the top and respectful of management. They understand governance, pay attention, show up and are clear in their expectations of management; if not generous to a fault the board members are strong contributors.
The not so good boards are most often founder dominated."Fish rots from the head down," says the ancient proverb. Board members and management go along; no one wants to cross the founder. New ideas and new ways disappear into committees that never meet. Sometimes it is hard to feel the stiletto or even know where it went in.
The best nonprofit CEOs I've worked for have figured out a modus for dealing respectfully and candidly with the board chairperson; they make sure the board's membership rotates and that there is reasonable enforcement of term limits. They are transparent in their dealings with the board, they are accountable, they consult and both offer and seek advice. They are tough-minded and most of all they have humor.
Then there is a vast middle: In the board room tarries people who should have left - toes up or otherwise; often the board is observably passive/aggressive. Meetings are stunningly soporific because of the baffle-them-with-bullshit style of deliberate information overload, incomprehensible financial reports, suffocating detail about the golf event and no time left to discuss "program."
This is the question I ask myself: if this organization's board did not exist what difference would it make? If I'm not sure I have a board beyond belief!
Monday, July 14, 2008
Mind The Gap ...
It's sometimes said that trustees of nonprofits check their brains at the boardroom door. Otherwise sophisticated men and women - people who are successful in business, or who can manage money or who bring critical skills to an organization don't apply the same rigor to nonprofit governance as they do to their own business affairs.
There may be occasional good reason to place that charge on board members. I have seen dereliction from both the perspective of the consultant advising boards as well as from the vantage point of a person with long experience serving on nonprofit boards. One reason board members may act casually is because they trust management to do the real work and they rely heavily on the information management gives them - or doesn't.
This brings me to ACORN, the national association of community organizers. On its web site - but only after national press attention apparently forced it - Maud Hurd ACORN's president issued this statement:
The operative phrase here is of course "recently heard." How could it be that the board members just learned of an eight-year old crime? One answer is management did not tell them. A second answer is that in relying on management's good faith nobody asked any questions. But even when questions are asked there is no guarantee that the truth will out.
Having recently gone through a financial crisis as treasurer of a nonprofit I know first hand how hard it can be for a trustee to really know what's going on. Each month the finance committee of this organization received detailed financial information and each month I would ask management the same question: "any surprises?" And each month I was assured there were none. Until in the dog days of last summer a million dollar short fall turned up. Luckily - after a thorough and costly forensic investigation - incompetent accounting and not crime turned out to be the root cause.
If I had known what questions to ask, I'd have asked them. I suspect that would have been true of ACORN's board as well. Boards don't always know what questions to ask and managements are sometimes not forthcoming. Mind the gap .
There may be occasional good reason to place that charge on board members. I have seen dereliction from both the perspective of the consultant advising boards as well as from the vantage point of a person with long experience serving on nonprofit boards. One reason board members may act casually is because they trust management to do the real work and they rely heavily on the information management gives them - or doesn't.
This brings me to ACORN, the national association of community organizers. On its web site - but only after national press attention apparently forced it - Maud Hurd ACORN's president issued this statement:
“ACORN now begins a new chapter as its founder and chief organizer, Wade Rathke, is moving on from the organization he founded in 1970. The ACORN Board recently learned that Wade’s brother, Dale, misappropriated organization funds eight years ago, and as a result, the Board decided it was in the best interests of ACORN for Wade Rathke to step down as Chief Organizer. Eight years ago an enforceable restitution plan was obtained. Regular payments have been made over the intervening years, and arrangements are now in place to return the rest of the misappropriated funds."
The operative phrase here is of course "recently heard." How could it be that the board members just learned of an eight-year old crime? One answer is management did not tell them. A second answer is that in relying on management's good faith nobody asked any questions. But even when questions are asked there is no guarantee that the truth will out.
Having recently gone through a financial crisis as treasurer of a nonprofit I know first hand how hard it can be for a trustee to really know what's going on. Each month the finance committee of this organization received detailed financial information and each month I would ask management the same question: "any surprises?" And each month I was assured there were none. Until in the dog days of last summer a million dollar short fall turned up. Luckily - after a thorough and costly forensic investigation - incompetent accounting and not crime turned out to be the root cause.
If I had known what questions to ask, I'd have asked them. I suspect that would have been true of ACORN's board as well. Boards don't always know what questions to ask and managements are sometimes not forthcoming. Mind the gap .
Monday, June 16, 2008
STEWART R. MOTT
On Thursday June 12th Stewart R. Mott died.
I first met him in the late 1960s. The Oram Group served several clients in or on the periphery of peace and disarmament, family planning and civil rights - the prime motivators of Stewart's philanthropy. In those heady days the firm also did political work. I got to know Stewart over time and especially during Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign when we spent time together. In 1968 or 1969 Harold L. Oram tried - for the first time - to sell the business - to Stewart and another peace activist Robert Wallace Gilmore. That bid failed for various reasons, the asking price foremost.
Our relationship continued through the clients we served - the McGovern campaign, other political campaigns that caught Stewart's eye and wallet, and of course the ongoing interests of Spectemer Agendo - Stewart's foundation now known as the Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust.
In 1976 Harold Oram was a sick man. For the second time (that I knew about) he decided to put the company on the block. I owned 18% of Oram's stock and by refusing to surrender it was able to control to whom the company might be flogged. Harold was not pleased to say the least but it enabled me to block a buyer of whom I did not approve and for whom I would not work. Finally Harold said out of frustration "all right go to Mott and Gilmore" which I had wanted to do right along but only if a reasonable price could be struck with him.
I went to Stewart and Robert and asked them to back me in purchasing the firm. Both of them knew the firm well, they knew me, and they were interested because we were one of the very few firms in this niche industry serving the progressive causes and politicians to which they were committed. Without a lot of fuss they agreed and for the next year we negotiated with Harold. His need to sell was at war with his love for the outstanding firm he had created and like virtually all founders he doubted in his heart that anyone else could carry on.
Stewart was one of the smartest people I have ever met; he was a polymath and especially his ability to crunch lots of numbers in his head at bullet speed was scary. Having had his own difficulties with a parent Stewart dutifully analyzed Harold and figured out that what he really wanted wasn't money but the security he thought the money would bring; Harold wanted an income for life that did not rest solely on the company's ability to generate it. It was Stewart who came up with the creative financing that finally brought Harold around and my lawyer figured out the rest of it. In 1978 we closed on the sale and Stewart and Robert joined the board (along with their respective financial advisors) and there they remained until a company reorganization in 1992.
Stewart rode around New York in all weather on a motorized scooter and one raw rainy day he showed up for an initial board meeting. The receptionist buzzed me in the conference room to announce that "the messenger is here." There indeed was the "messenger" - Stewart in oilskins, messenger bag slung over his shoulder, absolutely dripping,late as usual but ready to work.
We had become friends before we became business colleagues. Friendship mattered to him. For many years my wife and I tossed a New Year's day party that Stewart faithfully attended always in his kilts, with several ounces of his top notch pot in the spoorn.
As I wrote in 2001 for a speech about my career at Oram:
"Stewart Mott, whose fortune came from General Motors, was brilliant, erratic, always true to his principles, and the family outcast. He was a libertarian marijuana grower -- in his Park Avenue penthouse -- devotee of Renaissance music, unpretentious but definitely odd. For example, he generally received any and all in his skivvies. When he wasn’t doing pot, he smoked an exotic brand of Egyptian tobacco that smelled like burning rubber and swamp gas, combined. Despite considerable wealth in the coinage of the time, and of course everybody was after it, Stewart was for a long time the Most Eligible Man in New York Never to Get A Second Date With the Same Woman. His courting style was truly pathetic. But no matter. The ladies came in hope, and left in tears. Feminine raiment accessorized his bachelor lodgings."
Harold Oram is gone.
Robert Gilmore is gone.
Stewart Mott is gone.
I first met him in the late 1960s. The Oram Group served several clients in or on the periphery of peace and disarmament, family planning and civil rights - the prime motivators of Stewart's philanthropy. In those heady days the firm also did political work. I got to know Stewart over time and especially during Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign when we spent time together. In 1968 or 1969 Harold L. Oram tried - for the first time - to sell the business - to Stewart and another peace activist Robert Wallace Gilmore. That bid failed for various reasons, the asking price foremost.
Our relationship continued through the clients we served - the McGovern campaign, other political campaigns that caught Stewart's eye and wallet, and of course the ongoing interests of Spectemer Agendo - Stewart's foundation now known as the Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust.
In 1976 Harold Oram was a sick man. For the second time (that I knew about) he decided to put the company on the block. I owned 18% of Oram's stock and by refusing to surrender it was able to control to whom the company might be flogged. Harold was not pleased to say the least but it enabled me to block a buyer of whom I did not approve and for whom I would not work. Finally Harold said out of frustration "all right go to Mott and Gilmore" which I had wanted to do right along but only if a reasonable price could be struck with him.
I went to Stewart and Robert and asked them to back me in purchasing the firm. Both of them knew the firm well, they knew me, and they were interested because we were one of the very few firms in this niche industry serving the progressive causes and politicians to which they were committed. Without a lot of fuss they agreed and for the next year we negotiated with Harold. His need to sell was at war with his love for the outstanding firm he had created and like virtually all founders he doubted in his heart that anyone else could carry on.
Stewart was one of the smartest people I have ever met; he was a polymath and especially his ability to crunch lots of numbers in his head at bullet speed was scary. Having had his own difficulties with a parent Stewart dutifully analyzed Harold and figured out that what he really wanted wasn't money but the security he thought the money would bring; Harold wanted an income for life that did not rest solely on the company's ability to generate it. It was Stewart who came up with the creative financing that finally brought Harold around and my lawyer figured out the rest of it. In 1978 we closed on the sale and Stewart and Robert joined the board (along with their respective financial advisors) and there they remained until a company reorganization in 1992.
Stewart rode around New York in all weather on a motorized scooter and one raw rainy day he showed up for an initial board meeting. The receptionist buzzed me in the conference room to announce that "the messenger is here." There indeed was the "messenger" - Stewart in oilskins, messenger bag slung over his shoulder, absolutely dripping,late as usual but ready to work.
We had become friends before we became business colleagues. Friendship mattered to him. For many years my wife and I tossed a New Year's day party that Stewart faithfully attended always in his kilts, with several ounces of his top notch pot in the spoorn.
As I wrote in 2001 for a speech about my career at Oram:
"Stewart Mott, whose fortune came from General Motors, was brilliant, erratic, always true to his principles, and the family outcast. He was a libertarian marijuana grower -- in his Park Avenue penthouse -- devotee of Renaissance music, unpretentious but definitely odd. For example, he generally received any and all in his skivvies. When he wasn’t doing pot, he smoked an exotic brand of Egyptian tobacco that smelled like burning rubber and swamp gas, combined. Despite considerable wealth in the coinage of the time, and of course everybody was after it, Stewart was for a long time the Most Eligible Man in New York Never to Get A Second Date With the Same Woman. His courting style was truly pathetic. But no matter. The ladies came in hope, and left in tears. Feminine raiment accessorized his bachelor lodgings."
Harold Oram is gone.
Robert Gilmore is gone.
Stewart Mott is gone.
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