September 6, 2018

 

Our Giving Pledge

My family’s greatest treasure is our history and I’d like to share it with you.

The story of the Bainum’s begins at the onset of the Great Depression when, after twenty years of service, my father’s dad, my grandfather, lost his job on the assembly line at the Ford Motor Company. Soon enough, his eldest son – my dad, just eleven years old – was going door-to-door selling the Saturday Evening Post and Ladies Home Journal and hawking the Detroit Free Press on busy street corners.

During high school, my dad worked around the clock-starting the school’s heating system every morning, digging ditches for 10 cents an hour, working in a print shop and even on a farm. At age 17, hearing that there were better jobs in Washington D.C., he dropped out of school and hitch-hiked from Cincinnati to Washington over the Fourth of July weekend of 1936, with three dollars in his pocket.

There he found work at a generous 30 cents an hour as a plumber’s helper. In time, he supplemented his income by driving a taxi at night and selling vegetables out of his plumbing truck on the weekends.

He made his first ambitious move after the war, when he started his own plumbing business. In time, he saved enough to buy a house where he built a basement apartment for us to live in and rented out the floors upstairs. When the value of the house went up, he sold it, found another at a good price and did it all over again. And again, and again. By the time I was seven, our family had lived in six different houses.

In time, he expanded from plumbing and house flipping into general contracting and later was developing small apartments, and a few houses. By 1957, after 21 years, he had saved $50 thousand, just enough to build, with three other partners, a 24-room hotel. This became the predecessor to what is now Choice Hotels. A few years later he built a nursing home which was the origin of Manor Care.

Of course, even then, my dad already knew what he wanted his children to inherit: a sturdy work ethic. At his insistence, I started in our family business at the bottom. I worked every summer from age 12 on – first at the hotel as a janitor and maid, later as a dishwasher and construction laborer. In high school, I was far from the best student in the class, but I did find a college that would accept me. Four years later, I was the first person in my family, along with my sister, to graduate.

In 1972, after completing my education, I joined the family business, where I have worked ever since. I have lived through many of its up and downs – including a serious brush with bankruptcy in the 1970’s. But with the head start my dad created, along with more than our share of luck and the dedication over the years of hundreds of thousands of wonderful associates, our businesses have grown and created value for our stakeholders and the entire Bainum family. In all, our story is just another iteration of the American dream, no more or less amazing than the story of millions of others who have worked hard and created a life and a legacy far beyond their wildest ambitions.

With our good fortune came the obligation to give back. My interest in philanthropy and public service grew out of both my religious upbringing, which included a year and a half of divinity school, and my parents’ early commitment to giving. They formed a family foundation over 50 years ago and have invested the large majority of their wealth in philanthropy.

With every donation, we ask ourselves, “Where can we make the most difference?” So far, that question has led us to focus on well-governed, sustainable, results-oriented and data-driven organizations with high potential leaders that are (1) saving and/or transforming children’s lives; (2) scalable, but overlooked and under-funded; (3) adept at changing government policy; and (4) open to our suggestions for building strong governance. This focus has increasingly led us to organizations that are changing lives in developing countries where our dollars can do so much more.

Historically we’ve preferred to quietly allocate our philanthropic capital, often anonymously. But we have come to believe that joining “The Giving Pledge” might motivate others to as well. And so, we are pleased to formalize a decision we made some years ago to give the majority of our wealth to philanthropy.

We are especially proud that this letter also expresses the wishes of our two sons, who share the belief that one’s highest calling is to make a difference in the lives of others.

Most of all, our family is looking forward to being part of a community of giving and learning how we might have the greatest lasting impact on improving the world. And with that, it is our hope that the greatest chapter in Bainum family history has yet to be written.