A Donor Driven by Business Acumen and Gut Instinct

Patrick McDermott

Washington philanthropist Adrienne Arsht likes to give big to organizations where she sees need and to efforts she thinks other philanthropists aren’t supporting. She says she makes her giving decisions based on gut instinct.

“I hate to say it, but I know it when I see it,” says Arsht. “When I meet somebody and learn about their organization, it either connects or it doesn’t.”

The former lawyer and banker has donated a total of at least $88 million, mostly to education, health, Hispanic causes, the performing arts, and public policy, and says she isn’t slowing down anytime soon. So what’s next?

Arsht says one area of great importance to her right now is resilience — both in individuals and in communities.

She has donated about $15 million to the Atlantic Council, where she serves as an executive vice chairman, to create a center on Latin America and the Adrienne Arsht Center for Resilience. The resilience center, which launched last year, is focused on helping countries, states, cities, and individuals prepare for and cope with crises. The idea to create such a program had been brewing in Arsht’s mind for years. She says it had its roots in her questions about how people and places cope with adversity. And in some ways, it stems from a family tragedy.

Personal Crisis

Arsht’s sister, Alison, was working for the United States Information Agency in 1969 when, on a trip to Moscow, she was seized and held overnight by the KGB. Arsht says Alison was traumatized by the experience and fell into a depression soon after. In 1973, she committed suicide. “My younger sister was brilliant and a far better student for whom life became too painful,” says Arsht. “I always wondered why I’m willing to fight to survive and she found it too painful and what is resilience or why didn’t she have it in enough capacity to survive.”

Arsht’s questions about human resilience developed into concerns about global resilience and her growing fear that most governments and municipalities are ill prepared for the kinds of catastrophes — pandemics, natural disasters, the problems associated with radicalization — that have snowballed around the globe in recent years.

“Building resilient systems, electric grids, and other things, and the need for cities to figure out or find ways to sustain in a natural disaster and move forward are things that are important to think about today,” says Arsht.

From Law to Finance

Arsht’s professional life started with her work as a lawyer at her father’s law firm in the mid 1960s. Later she joined the legal department of Trans World Airlines, in New York. She worked for TWA for a decade and became the first woman in the company’s property, cargo, and government-relations departments, which was unusual at the time.

In 1979 she met the wealthy Washington businessman Myer (Mike) Feldman, a former lawyer who served as special counsel to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. She moved to Washington to join Feldman, and they married in 1980. In 1996, she moved to Miami to lead the couple’s TotalBank, serving as chairman until 2007, the year her husband died.

Arsht then sold the bank to Banco Popular Español for $300 million and moved back to the Washington area.

In Miami, she became known for her business acumen (she expanded the bank and grew its assets to $1.4 billion) and got involved in Miami’s business and finance circles. She also got involved with philanthropy, funding a number of groups serving Miami’s Cuban immigrant families and creating a group to mentor young businesswomen.

Family Tradition

Arsht grew up in Wilmington, Del., in a family where philanthropy was taught by example rather than discussed.

Arsht is the oldest daughter of Roxana Cannon Arsht, Delaware’s first female judge, and Samuel Arsht, a prominent corporate lawyer who chaired the committee that revised the state’s General Corporation Law, making Delaware the friendliest state in which to incorporate a business.

Roxana and Samuel were each the children of Russian Jewish immigrants, and Arsht grew up watching them participate and give extensively to community-service groups and those in need. Among the many nonprofits they supported was a local United Way chapter, which her mother led, and the local Visiting Nurse Association, for which her father served as chairman.

Arsht has followed that tradition by donating to and serving on the boards of numerous nonprofits. She currently serves on the boards of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Trustees Council of the National Gallery of Art, and others.

‘I Show Up’

Arsht is sometimes described as a hands-on donor, but she swats that description away when asked about it.

“Hands on? I would say that I show up,” says Arsht. “At the Atlantic Council, there are many events that have nothing to do with my centers, but I attend conferences and lectures to learn. I believe in the ideas and concepts of what I fund, but the actual product I have nothing to do with; I don’t believe a donor should define the intellectual outcome.”

Arsht says there are no hard and fast rules about what attracts her to a charity or what she looks for when she is deciding whether to donate. She says what is most important to her is whether a nonprofit’s work is of any real interest to her or moves her in some way.

When an organization does attract her interest, she often joins the board and applies her skills as a convener, using her considerable business and philanthropy networks to introduce leaders from both realms to the organizations she is backing.

“I don’t ask for money, but I’ll be glad to act as a sort of gadfly,” she says. “The fundraising I will do is with corporate foundations. My DNA is marketing, so when I can find connections and reasons why this company would want to participate in that program, I’m happy to connect them.”

While Arsht may not ask other wealthy individuals to give outright to a nonprofit with which she is involved, she says she likes inviting them to something that will highlight the group’s work, something she thinks fundraisers need to do more of.

“Invite me to see the product, the production, the results of what the organization does; let me see the excellence of the organization,” says Arsht.

She says the best way for fundraisers and other nonprofit leaders to find success with philanthropists like her is not to simply ask for a gift but instead show a potential donor why they believe the group’s work is worthwhile.

“The advice I give to organizations is: Take the time to find out if the person is interested; show an interest in the person and what they care about,” says Arsht. “As the asking party, you should be sure there is passion in the other person for what you’re suggesting.”