Featured Member
- Greg Smith – Fries and Philanthropy Share a Plate
- Kittie Fahey – Beginning with Lemonade, Philanthropy is a Neighborly Thing
Fries and Philanthropy Share a Plate
By Henry Owen
What, you might wonder, does the One Percent Club have to do with the sale of potato soup and skins and even potato breadsticks in places ranging from the United Kingdom and China to the Middle East, Morocco, South Africa and elsewhere?
Actually, a lot, because a global restaurant franchise company—SpudsToGo—has become the first business entity to commit to the One Percent Club's minimum standard of annually giving the greater of one percent of net worth or five percent of income to the charities of its choice.
SpudsToGo joined over 1,000 couples and individuals in the One Percent Club when Greg Smith, owner of the privately held company, landed on the One Percent Club's website during an Internet search for ideas about philanthropy and community service.
There was no eureka moment for Smith, "Basically, what I did was register and submit an application." Now he features the One Percent Club prominently on the corporate website, www.spudstogo.com, where he encourages franchisees to commit to the One Percent Club's minimum standard of giving. In addition, he plans to extend the One Percent Club concept of philanthropy among the other businesses that he operates.
SpudsToGo, Smith says, wants to offer more than "just great products at affordable prices but also returning something to the community. That's what the One Percent Club means to us." In addition to committing to giving of the business' wealth and income to the communities it serves, SpudsToGo also gives of its time through Mr. Spud, a corporate mascot in the manner of Ronald McDonald. Franchise staffers don a Mr. Spud costume for visits to hospitals and other community events. "Every franchisee is local, has local ties and gives back to the community that gives them business."
Smith got the idea for SpudsToGo eight years ago, when he walked into the potato-themed restaurant in Edinburg, Scotland, for a quick snack. He liked the food well enough to acquire the concept and launch the global franchising business three years ago.
Each restaurant features a multitude of potato dishes that—in addition to potato soup, skins and breadsticks—include 250 potato toppings as well as potato muffins, candies and pudding. Restaurants also carry fruit and vegetable drinks from Fruit ‘n' Smoothie, which Smith also acquired recently.
Around the world, SpudsToGo operates with partner companies. For example, Smith recently returned from Dubai, where he signed up a franchise partner who serves Qatar, Bahrain and possibly Saudi Arabia. In an interesting juxtaposition, his partner in the United Kingdom also serves Morocco, "because that's where he's from."
SpudsToGo is based in Teaneck, NJ, but, its current 150 outlets are all outside the United States, with the Middle East and China targeted as special growth opportunities, and a number of U.S. locations in planning and under development.
Smith is especially optimistic about China where, he says, "We have a developer anticipating at least 10,000 stores in the next five years." It's a large company, he adds, "They're buying and paying … they're very competent." He'll soon be in Hong Kong to celebrate store openings.
Smith and his wife, Katerina, live and work in Athens, Greece, because most of their businesses are in Europe and, Smith says, they might as well be in Europe as they travel there all the time.
The couple's other firms include HYPAY Corp., which is based in the United Kingdom, and provides stores and businesses in 40 countries with low-cost gift, loyalty and payment cards. It has 100 million cards in use in Malaysia alone. As SpudsToGo grows, Smith plans for it to play a prominent role in extending the card service's reach. He also plans to incorporate the One Percent Club's minimum standard of giving into HYPAY's widespread operations.
In addition to SpudsToGo and HYPAY, Smith and his wife operate a number of other firms including a Best Western hotel in Greece, W3Rez, a hotel-reservation service, and Mayside Research Institute, a polling and research service. They also run Officialwire, a service for distributing news releases and other information for clients. Smith started the firm after he "couldn't find a reputable journalist who'd follow up on a good corporate story." Officialwire has a staff of 16 writers in New York and a close relationship with United Press International news service.
With SpudsToGo a going concern, the Smiths are looking into aspects of their own philanthropy that follow the One Percent Club minimum standard of giving. He says his wife, Katerina, "is keen about setting up scholarships" and will be focusing her interests on higher-education in the United States because there are fewer opportunities to fund scholarships in Europe, since most college-tuition-payments are government-paid.
No matter how you dish it up … businesswise or philanthropically … this linking of the One Percent Club and its first business member—a global one, at that—is no small potatoes for either organization!
Beginning with Lemonade, Philanthropy is a Neighborly Thing
By Henry Owen
Philanthropy was in her family — and the neighborhood — when Kittie Fahey was growing up in Hyde Park, New York. As she notes, her parents were generous givers, as were many locals, including such historical down-river neighbors as the Roosevelts and Vanderbilts.
This recent member of the One Percent Club credits her mother — active in many Junior League charities — as the example she followed into a similar role, which began in the 1970s when, age 7 to 10, she ran lemonade stands in the front yard and "carnivals out of a box" (they came as kits) in the back yard. "I was trying to wrangle money to give to the local humane society," she said.
Although the family lived in many places away from Hyde Park, they maintained links to their charitable interests in the New York area. This is one reason Fahey feels strongly, today, that "Somebody who has lived in a community and has left it should continue to support the community. It's the community in which you became successful."
"We were traveling little fools," Fahey said of her family, which moved as far from Hyde Park as Auburn, Ala., and she was living in Boston, when she became of college age. That was in the 1980s, when she picked the University of Minnesota, because it offered majors in two of her interests—ballet and zoology.
She graduated with a degree in zoology, but "I knew I'd never work in zoology." At the time, she was volunteering "on committee after committee, when an organization offered to pay me. I was surprised; I had thought of fund raising as something you do, not as a profession, but that's ultimately what I wound up doing."
Fahey has been raising funds professionally for 15 years. She started a company that she called Eventures, because she "raised money for events." She gave up on the name, however, because, in the 1980s, "everybody thought Eventures was a dot-com company." For a while, she had an office in the Loring Park area but, today, runs her business out of her home in Northeast Minneapolis. Among other things, she's "currently doing a long project for United Way that relates to fund-raising."
The idea of events plays a role in her giving. "I sponsor a lot of tables at events." She also does "a lot of membership-based things," as a member of WAMSO and the Junior League. She especially likes the idea of helping an organization get going and "spending a year or two transitioning it into its own or part of another organization," as the Junior League did with the Children's Theater Company.
Free Art Minnesota is one of her major activities right now, which she says "does a nice job of connecting with donors [and] makes you want to do it [which is to help] children suffering from child abuse and other problems at homes. They can come and learn about art and dance." Kids in stress situations "need to be taken away from the horror of home for a while," she says.
In general, Fahey finds it important to support human services, the arts, education and religion, plus "a wild card … something you just like." The Minnesota Zoo is her big wild card. She's an avid volunteer, including assisting with its annual Beastly Ball fund raiser for 15 years in a row.
She likes not only the zoo, itself, but also the camaraderie developed as part of a tightly knit group of donors and volunteers. "When you have your peers based on similar values, it becomes a much stronger relationship," she notes. "In my zoo crowd three couples met and married through volunteering."
This sense of camaraderie extends to the entire philanthropic community of the Twin Cities for Fahey. "We're a small town, and you're always crossing paths. You never know where people are going to intersect. If you're not in the philanthropic community, you're missing out."
For a while Fahey was "missing out" on the One Percent Club, which she knew about since its founding in 1997 but didn't join because of an attitude about giving of why bother, since "everybody does it." What changed her mind was a realization that "a lot of my friends are in it, and I just decided I've got to join." It was another step in this zoology major's evolution from lemonade stands and back-yard carnivals in Hyde Park to Auburn to Boston and to a philanthropic life and career in the Twin Cities.
