Giving Cash and Comfort

Norwalk Hospital

Helping parents cope with a child’s illness or death is Carol Bauer’s calling. The Wilton, Conn., philanthropist serves as an on-call volunteer chaplain at Norwalk Hospital, where she wears a pager and is frequently called in at all hours to assist grieving families and sick patients. Her specialty is child-maternal health and serving families who have lost an infant.

Bauer and her husband, George, know what it’s like to lose a child. They have three grown children, but their firstborn, Jeffrey, died shortly after birth. Their first donation — a rocking chair for their church’s nursery — was given in Jeffrey’s honor in 1958. And while they do not talk about that loss at length, Jeffrey’s death continues to inform Carol Bauer’s work as a chaplain and reminds her that each family’s experience is different.

“I would never say to a family ‘I know how you feel’ because you really don’t know how another feels,” said Carol. “I’m there as a listening presence and for the children who are present in the emergency room and for the babies who die.”

Heavy Personal Toll

The work takes an emotional toll. When a baby dies, doctors turn to Carol to bathe and dress the infant. She then leads a small service for the family.

She works with adult patients as well and often gets called into the emergency room. In September she worked in the hospital 23 days in a row.

She says she copes with some of the sadness inherent in the work by leaning on George, who wakes up and takes her to the hospital when she gets called in the middle of the night and picks her up when it’s time to come home. On the ride home, they talk over what Carol experienced in the hospital that night.

“He’s my sounding board, and he’s there to listen. That’s so important,” she says. “You have to have someone you can talk to and who will be a support. I couldn’t get through without it.”

The Bauers’ involvement with the hospital has spanned four decades. To date, they’ve given the medical center a total of $21.5 million and helped Norwalk raise about $100 million from others. The hospital’s Newborn Intensive Care Unit is named for Jeffrey, the infant son they lost so long ago.

The volunteer work, which often includes dealing with infants born addicted to narcotics and premature babies struggling to survive, is intense, demanding, and sometimes emotionally crushing. Most babies recover to some degree, but some don’t survive.

Alicia Briggs, the chairwoman of pediatrics at Norwalk, has known Carol for a decade. “Each and every time we lose a baby, we get concerned about our staff and how they’re going to deal with that loss,” says Briggs. “Carol comes in and talks with everybody as a group or privately; however they want. She’s a listener and she’s somebody that we know, and that makes all the difference for us.”

Leveling the Playing Field

Along with what they have given to Norwalk, the Bauers have also donated about $80 million to other nonprofits, both personally and through their Bauer Foundation, which had $12.3 million in assets at the end of 2017, according to the most recent tax filings. The couple direct most of their giving to four nonprofits. Along with Norwalk, they’ve given Washington University in St. Louis (George’s alma mater) $25 million over the years, at least $10 million to Habitat for Humanity, and $10 million to Americares.

They also support other healthcare and education groups and efforts aimed at what George Bauer calls “leveling the playing field” — groups helping low-income young people succeed and to organizations that help those in need.

John Halpern

The Bauers view their charitable giving as a way to connect the spiritual and secular aspects of their lives. They are American Baptists, and both come from humble backgrounds. They met as college students in the 1950s, when Carol was president of the Baptist Student Union at what was then Harris Teachers College (now known as Harris-Stowe State University) and George was vice president of the interfaith council at Washington University in St. Louis.

After graduating, George joined the Army, and Carol taught in St. Louis public schools. They married in 1955. George earned a master’s degree in engineering and spent 31 years as an executive with IBM, a career that took the Bauers all over the country. They also lived for two years in Britain and four years in France in the 1970s.

It was there, on a walk through the grounds surrounding Château de Malmaison, an estate in the western suburbs of Paris that was once the home of Napoleon, that Carol first learned of the volunteer work at Norwalk Hospital. She was hosting a friend of a friend who was visiting Paris and happened to be Norwalk’s director of volunteers.

Carol was intrigued by how she might be able to help others as a hospital volunteer, and the conversation stayed with her. When the couple left France and moved to Connecticut in the late 1970s, Carol got back in touch with the woman and became a Norwalk volunteer.

Through that work, she got to know the hospital and joined its board in 1984, later becoming Norwalk’s first female chairman. She stepped down from that role in 2001 and then started the hospital’s spiritual-care division, through which its chaplains operate. George retired from IBM in 1987 and founded the GPB Group, a private investment firm and the primary source of the couple’s wealth. He joined Norwalk’s board in 2013.

Getting to Know Leaders

The Bauers’ deep involvement with Norwalk over the years means hospital leaders often call on them to talk to potential donors who want to know more before they commit to giving a gift. Their deep knowledge of the hospital’s operations makes it easy.

“When we talk to people about giving, we do it through a specific knowledge of a specific need,” says George. “I think it’s terribly important in the whole philanthropic effort that people get engaged with the thing they’re going to give to and become a part of it if possible.”

Whether it’s Norwalk or any other nonprofit they support, the Bauers get to know the organization’s leaders and learn as much as they can about the history of the charity’s programs.

Regardless of the type of organization they’re considering, they look for nonprofit leaders who are trustworthy, energetic, and experienced. They also favor leaders who have an intellectually curious approach to solving problems and who have won the support of their employees.

“It’s not difficult to assess, when you meet a leader, how they relate to the people who work for them, what kind of respect people have for that leader, and how they listen to what their staff say about the needs of any given project,” says Carol.

They’ve set up their family foundation to take the same approach of gaining a deep understanding of a nonprofit’s operations and its leadership before writing a check. Their three adult children are each allotted $100,000 a year to donate through the foundation to the charities of their choice. The couple’s five grandchildren are involved as well. Volunteering is a key part of that process for the whole family.

“It’s terribly important to have your children see circumstances outside their own environment and make sure they are exposed to environments other than the privileged one they grew up in,” says George.

The Bauers even give their foundation lawyer and financial adviser grant money to contribute to charity — with the requirement that they get involved with the nonprofits as well.

“We require that our foundation people and our three children, from the get-go, must be involved in an organization before we make any grants,” says Carol.

Children’s Philanthropy

While their children are free to pursue their own charitable priorities, Carol and George have had a big impact on their choices. All three of their children recently started giving on their own to New Life Center Foundation, a Thai organization that helps women and girls who are victims of sex trafficking and forced labor. The couple have supported the nonprofit for the past 20 years, but their kids didn’t know much about the group’s work until last year, when the family traveled to Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai, Thailand, where the charity operates housing for girls it has rescued. After seeing the difference the charity makes in the girls’ lives, the Bauer children are now helping to support 50 girls.

“When people actually see the work and are getting involved with it, they are so much more willing to not only talk about it with others but to give themselves,” says Carol.

While the Bauers have drawn their children and grandchildren into philanthropy, they want family members to eventually pursue their own giving in their own way, so they have decided to spend down their foundation and close it by 2035.

“We want to continue to make an impact on the world around us over the next 15 years,” say George. “And then wind up our view of the world and allow our kids, grandkids, and great-grandchildren to pick up on their own philanthropic activities in whatever vehicle they choose.”

Maria Di Mento directs the annual Philanthropy 50, a comprehensive report on America’s top donors. She writes about wealthy philanthropists, arts organizations, and key trends, among other topics. She recently wrote about a $125 million gift from hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin to a major science museum and a $100 million commitment from Nicole Shanahan for reproductive research and other causes. Email Maria or follow her on Twitter.