MATCHING HEDGE FUND MANAGERS WITH NONPROFIT BOARDS  
There are lots of opportunities, beyond simply writing a check, for hedge fund executives to get involved in philanthropy. Serving on a nonprofit's board of directors is an obvious path to engagement, but it's a path that may be difficult to follow without help.

Enter BoardAssist, a nonprofit that places high-impact board members in the nonprofit community. Founded in 2001, the New York-based group has traditionally worked to place executives on Wall Street with organizations that are meaningful to them. But as the hedge fund industry's talent pool and influence balloons, BoardAssist is stepping up its outreach efforts to this corner of the alternatives industry.

Hedge fund executives are known as much for their munificence as for their reputation for bringing a laser-like focus to achieve tangible results. For BoardAssist founder Cynthia Remec, the latter quality is far more compelling. "The intellectual capital is the gift," says Remec. "We are not looking to find candidates who are going to act as ATM machines on the nonprofit boards where we place them."

Remec, a former Wall Street recruiter and corporate lawyer, says hedge fund managers tend to bring an intense work ethic and bottom-line single-mindedness. Her goal is to match the candidate with the nonprofit that is both the best cultural fit and that best meets both parties' needs.

For example, BoardAssist recently placed Timothy Wilson, chief risk officer for $14 billion Caxton Associates, on the board of the African Medical Research and Education Foundation. AMREF conducts research and provides education to combat malaria and other health concerns in southern and eastern Africa.

Wilson's interest in improving health and welfare in economically disadvantaged countries can be traced to his childhood experiences. His father was a foreign service officer for the U.S. State Department, and as a boy he saw a broad swath of the world, having lived in the Bahamas, France, Haiti, Jamaica, Vietnam and Taiwan.

This spring, Wilson attended the organization's 50th anniversary in Nairobi, Kenya. The trip impressed on him the urgency of AMREF's mission. In western Kenya, says Wilson, "Many people, even now, aren't sure that mosquitoes are the means of transmission of malaria." Some believe the disease stems from other causes, like certain foods. AMREF is educating local volunteers who then meet with families to explain how malaria is transmitted and the necessity of using bed nets and other forms of malaria prevention.

"It was really helpful to me to be on the ground and see how the activities of AMREF were making a difference in people's lives," says Wilson, who now sits on AMREF's finance and audit committee. "The gulf in terms of standard of living between our lives and those in rural Kenya is tremendous, and that's the sobering aspect. The positive aspect is that such a modest effort on our part can very concretely improve and extend the lives of so many people in Africa."

And elsewhere in this same article…..

Not surprising for people whose success is driven by a relentless focus on performance, hedge fund philanthropists stand out in that they strive to put their money and time into projects that are measurable and scalable - and ones where they can have direct involvement in their creation and oversight. "There has been a major increase in hedge fund philanthropy, both in terms of quantity, and more important, quality," says Cynthia Remec, founder of BoardAssist, a group that helps nonprofits find qualified board members…..

Even if hedge fund managers fund a wide range of causes, there seems to be strong consensus around at least one goal: Improving education. Of the top 25 hedge fund foundations, 14 list education as a primary mission, according to an analysis by Absolute Return. "Hedge fund and financial services executives are very interested in job skills for adults, and very, very interested in education," says BoardAssist's Remec. "A lot of them came from a modest background and credit their education for helping them achieve what they have."…..

Whereas the wealthy, generally speaking, may distribute contributions of time and money more broadly, hedge fund moguls are often more focused. "Hedge fund foundations don't just give their money away and then do two site visits a year. They want to be involved in a much more hands-on way," says BoardAssist's Remec. "That mentality trickles down to individual board members, too. They don't want to write five separate checks to five separate organizations. They want to write one much bigger check to a single foundation."

BoardAssist's Remec notes that hedge fund executives are much more focused on getting a "return on their time investment." Instead of volunteering for two hours a month to serve soup at a soup kitchen, a hedge funder may try to use his time more efficiently, say by reviewing a foundation's portfolio allocation. At least one hedge fund executive Remec placed has done just that. By repositioning one foundation's investment portfolio, the hedge funder was able to boost annual returns on the foundation's $15 million in assets by 4 percentage points, providing an additional annuity of $600,000. "That $600,000 could buy a lot of staff time to serve food to needy New Yorkers," Remec says.

Conde Nast Portfolio Magazine cited BoardAssist in a November 2007 article discussing how to join a nonprofit board: 

BoardAssist, which works with hundreds of nonprofits [……,] arranged a match several years ago between George Mattson, a managing director at Goldman Sachs in Manhattan, and Volunteers of America, a national human-services nonprofit. Mattson hadn’t explored board service before he got the call from BoardAssist about V.O.A., but it coincided with Mattson, in his words, “feeling successful enough to look around a bit, and wanting to help people who haven’t been as fortunate.” In addition to the good timing, V.O.A. was a good fit for Mattson, who says “it felt very much like a hands-on, working board, meaning it was a lot about trying to manage and grow a big, complex organization, and a little less about benefits, dinners, and fundraising.” 
 
Organizations like BoardAssist can help mediate between charities looking for a board member and potential candidates, many of whom have little time to spend vetting multiple boards, but are also loathe to waste time later on boards that don’t fit with their charitable goals and philosophies.  

The Financial Times featured BoardAssist in a July 2007 article on joining nonprofit boards: 

There’s a misconception about an organization’s prestige versus the amount necessary to join the board,” says Cynthia Remec, executive director of BoardAssist. “Some of the most prestigious organizations require only $1,000, while a lot of the smaller boards have larger commitments.”

Identify opportunities to contribute: Many boards have project-oriented sub-committees and provide members with significant prospects for leadership. At a small non-profit set-up, board members may even assume staff positions. “You can jump in where you feel like you have expertise and when you have the time,” Remec says. “It allows you to act as a business owner in a way you might not in your day job.”

That said, when considering board membership, Remec advises candidates to ask for five things board members have done in the past year, other than generate money.

The Deal profiled Cynthia Remec’s board matching work in a December 2002 article on New Yorkers making a difference in the nonprofit community. The following is an excerpt from the same and describes how Ms. Remec works to make it easier for committed New Yorkers to find nonprofit board spots:

"We take the whole cloak-and-dagger double secret out of the board process. I spell out what the time commitment is, what the financial commitment is and what the board culture is." She points out that while "I was concerned that the organizations would want my [candidates] just for their checkbooks, the organizations I work with want something in the range of $5,000 to $10,000" and managerial involvement. "These executives can come in and look at an organization like a McKinsey consultant and see where it needs to go. I won't work with a nonprofit who says we want $25,000 a year but they don't have to show up."

Remec calls education boards "some of the most desirable to [candidates]." She notes that two of the nonprofits she has worked with are Volunteers of America, which provides outreach services such as job training for the homeless and elder care, and the Patrons Program, which works with Catholic elementary schools in New York City.

Patrons allows donors to adopt inner-city schools. The program is backed by a number of past and current Wall Streeters such as U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., formerly of Goldman Sachs; Thomas McInerney, Russell Carson and Richard Stowe of Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe; Mario Gabelli of Gabelli Funds Inc.; Roger Altman of Evercore Partners; John J. Mack of Credit Suisse First Boston; and Phillip Purcell of Morgan Stanley.

Despite that kind of firepower, Remec says board members "don't need to be over 40 and have a roman numeral at the end of your name. But it's a wonderful gift, a chance to serve in a meaningful way." –The Deal, December 13, 2002

The Wall Street Journal profiled Cynthia Remec’s non-profit board practice in their Bids and Offers Column. The following is an excerpt from the article entitled "A Helping Hand for Nonprofits’ Boards"

In the wake of September 11, charity has taken on new importance for Wall Street… Cynthia T. Remec….[is] acting as a go-between-for no fee---for charities and nonprofits looking for high-powered investment bankers to serve on their boards.

“My goal has been to make the board placement process less clubby and more democratic,” she said, while getting more information to the bankers about which charities need high-level help. “It makes no sense for them to be licking envelopes for benefit invitations when they can provide value in a much more meaningful way.”  
--The Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2001

In January of 2002, Crain’s profiled Remec’s pro bono board project in an article entitled “From Doing Well to Doing Good.” The following is an excerpt from the same:

Charity work may seem out of character for the city's moneymen and women, but Cynthia Remec, who helps financial folks find board positions at nonprofits, says the demand to do good is rising.

“The number of people interested in joining volunteer organizations has skyrocketed since Sept. 11,” says Ms. Remec.  
--Crain’s New York Business, January 21, 2002

Investment Dealer’s Digest profiled Cynthia Remec and her nonprofit board service in December 2001. The following is taken from that two page article:

"Cynthia's project is not only generous, but ingenious,” says John Hardiman, partner with the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, who helped Remec find charities. “And we were happy to help her with it.”

Remec and her team created a charity database that spells out what each charity expects of the board member in terms of time and money, and gives important details such as how often the board meets, where and for how long. This takes out the secretive nature of serving on a board, and lays out the terms just like a deal sheet. “They have done a great job organizing the information,” says [one] Goldman banker.

“My goal is to increase Wall Street involvement in the New York non-profit community by taking the mystery out of the charitable board game,” she says. “I wanted to show our investment banking candidates they didn't need to be 50 years old, or have a trust fund or a roman numeral at the end of their name to sit on a charitable board.”

The inspiration for this program came to Remec after she survived a car accident last year and decided to find a way to help others. A non-profit volunteer who has chaired events for the Fresh Air Fund, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and many others, she knew that boards are like a business that needs direction and strategy. --Investment Dealer’s Digest, December 17, 2001