Jennifer McDonald, the newly appointed executive director of the One Percent Club, brings a varied career in nonprofit, government, and small business management to the more than 1,000 member volunteer position. Here, she discusses her role and plans for the club.
Q. What is the One Percent Club?
A. It’s an organization that was founded 10 years ago by wealthy people who wanted to bring other wealthy people into the fold of giving. Our goal is to increase philanthropy by encouraging people to commit to our minimum standard of giving, which is giving annually the greater of 1 percent of net worth or 5 percent of income. We also support philanthropists. We’re one of the few nonprofits that seeks to provide an unbiased environment to learn how to become philanthropists and network with like-minded people.
Q. What attracted you to the position?
A. The concept of seeking to increase funds available to the nonprofit sector and the fact that the organization isn’t about collecting funds itself, although we do a small amount of fundraising to support our administrative budget. It’s about getting money to the organizations that are doing community work. It’s also getting people of means to look at their potential for giving and helping them recognize that even though they give a lot in terms of a dollar amount, it’s not even 1 percent of their net worth.
Q. What impact has the One Percent Club had on the community?
A. It has increased the amount of giving in the Twin Cities. Through our annual survey we’ve found that giving has increased by $100 million to nonprofits during our 10 years.
Q. What are your plans for the Club?
A. We are starting chapters in other communities. We were approached by a group in LaCrosse, Wisc. We’ve also gotten inquiries from Hawaii, Houston, and San Diego. They can use the same 501(c)(3) organization we started, but use whatever structure they want at the local level. We’ll have a board here and each chapter can have a seat on our board.
Q. What other initiatives are you working on?
A. People in the One Percent Club are concerned about giving in the next generation—that their kids aren’t as invested in giving. So we have an effort to engage people in philanthropy from all ages. We’re going to be working with an organization called LEAD [Leadership Emergence and Development Project], and we’ll put together workshops and panel discussions with our members to educate their members about becoming philanthropists.
Q. What trends do you see in personal philanthropy?
A. I see financial planners, financial advisors, and wealth coaches actually working with their clients on identifying philanthropy as part of their estate planning. It’s not just about building their own wealth and the wealth of their family it’s about building the community as well. That’s very exciting.
Also, hearing philanthropists encouraging others to become philanthropists is great as well.
