Valley man puts up $2 mill for Haiti

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

By Ben Cannon

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Jackson Hole-based venture capitalist Foster Friess and his wife, Lynn, have pledged to match up to $2 million in aid to Haiti through a new fund the couple co-founded.

The Haiti Renewal Fund, which launched a Web site earlier this week, invites people to donate to an organization that will give charitable endeavors including children’s hospitals, clean water projects and home-finding for orphans. Donations are matched by the Friess Family Foundation, and other donors could materialize in the future, a Family Foundation spokesman said.

The Haiti Renewal Fund is administered by the National Christian Foundation, an Atlanta-based network that has dispensed more than $2 billion worldwide, according to the organization’s Web site.

While Mr. Friess, who is a born-again Christian, is known for his support of private sector and faith-based initiatives, the fund will support both faith-based and secular charitable groups, Matthew Taylor, the foundation spokesman said.

Haiti Renewal Fund co-founder and spokesman Craig Juntunen had a stake in Haiti before the earthquake. After retiring from the private sector at 40, Juntunen adopted three Haitian children and later wrote a book about the experience. He put up his own money to start up an organization that supports an orphanage in a village outside of Port Au Prince.

Friess, who favors private sector solutions over government and even large aid organizations, said his plan involves getting money to more nimble charities that have knowledge of the local terrain and can operate without a lot of administrative overhead.

“The relief aid flowing there now is phenomenal but its appropriate distribution remains a challenge as some aid remains piled in warehouses,” Friess said in a dictation to a spokesman.

Friess often shuns using email and telephones himself.
Friess explained that the Haiti Renewal Fund has so far selected three aid organizations to receive funding. All three were begun by wealthy individuals who put their own money into new charitable endeavors.

Chances for Children, a secular orphanage endowment founded by Juntunen, will shift part of its focus to home-finding and easing international adoption laws to handle the glut of orphans that will be a legacy of the Haiti earthquake. There were an estimated 390,000 orphans before the earthquake, according to the Chances for Children Web site.

A second funding recipient, Water Missions International, is a faith-based organization that provides clean drinking water solutions to devastated areas and the developing world. Friess became acquainted with the organization while in Sri Lanka for tsunami relief. In the last two weeks, WMI had installed nine water purification units in Haiti, with 20 more in the works, Taylor said.

The third group, CURE International, builds children’s hospitals and has assisted doctors following the earthquake, according to Taylor.

Friess said other players on the international philanthropic scene, including actress Cheryl Ladd and former Vice President Dan Quayle and wife, Marilyn, are expected to become involved with the Haiti Renewal Fund.

“These people have heard God’s call,” he said.

 Taylor said the group will target even seemingly small contributions from individuals who may be more likely to give, knowing their donations would be matched and, in effect, doubled. The organization will use social media outlets Facebook and Twitter to advertise the Haiti Renewal Fund.

“We’re trying to leverage smaller donors in the hope that [the matching donation] will push somebody to the brink of donating,” Taylor said.

By Tuesday, the Web site had received more than $150,000 in donations, but that number did not account for all of the money pledged, Taylor said.

The Haiti Renewal Fund, which is found at the Web address HaitiRewal.org, marks the second time this month Friess has grabbed headlines for putting millions of dollars onto the Web. He reportedly invested $3 million to start up the new political Web site the Daily Caller, which launched Jan. 11 and is like a right-leaning competitor of the Huffington Post. JHW

COURTESY CHILDREN 4 CHARITIES
Scenes of Haiti before the earthquake. 

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Valley man puts up $2 mill for Haiti | Planet JH News Article: General News

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