Charles Viertel
Dear guys,
A relative of mine always talked highly of Charles Viertel. Here are some parts of his story and the legacy he left behind.
Viertel, a low-profile Queensland foundation, is no small beer. With funds of about $100m, and annual grants totalling some $4m to $5m, it is probably the second largest in Australia behind the Ian Potter Foundation.
One of 11 children in a poor family at Kangaroo Point, Queensland, Charles Viertel graduated dux of Brisbane Central Technical High School and went on to complete a bachelor of commerce degree from the University of Queensland.
He became a successful accountant, property developer and sharemarket investor, motivated, it is said, by a teacher who wrote on a blackboard that he owed threepence for school fees. Viertel left an estimated $60m in a discretionary trust when he died in 1992. Friends say his lifestyle was frugal.
Through the 1990s, the trust gave away more than $26m to hundreds of causes, including blindness, cancer, drug rehabilitation, the homeless, churches, Meals on Wheels and St Vincent de Paul. Sylvia Viertel, who died a few years before Charles, had suffered from bad eyesight so prevention of blindness was a cause Charles favoured. But Viertel’s will gave his three trustees discretion to make grants within broad guidelines that half of the income go to projects involving children and youth problems, underprivilege and homelessness, and the alleviation of hardship for older people, while the other half would go to medical research.
There are some provisos. One says the trustees should disregard charities with high administrative expenses. The will names three organisations – Queensland Cancer Fund, Australian Foundation for the Prevention of Blindness (Queensland division) and the Salvation Army (Queensland) Property Trust – that the trustees should consider. But some say this is only in the event of excess funds being available.
Viertel’s three nominated trustees were Brian Gibbon as chairman, George Curphey and ANZ Executors and Trustees. Gibbon was a colleague of Viertel for 42 years, and at 21 was sent by Viertel to run his Quill stationery plant in Sydney. Viertel’s business administration was apparently as frugal as his personal life, as Gibbon received minimal holidays, no superannuation and no shareholding in the company. But on Viertel’s death he found himself entrusted with dispersing Viertel’s huge wealth to charities.
Gibbon, a religious man described by friends as a visionary, was responsible for many of the foundation’s initiatives, including senior medical research fellowships and its $1m-a-year Aboriginal causes program. The Fred Hollows Foundation was granted $250,000 a year for three years for its “Healthy Tucker Project” to improve Aboriginal health as a means of preventing blindness. Other indigenous grants involved leadership programs, nurse training, economic development and mental health. The foundation set up a committee to advise on Aboriginal grants, including Ahern and Sally Goold, president of the Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and a member of the National Reconciliation Council.
Under Gibbon’s leadership, and apparently with the support of ANZ Trustees, the foundation’s core funds grew to some $100m and its annual grants to $4m-$5m a year.
http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/bulletin/eddesk.nsf/printing/44D09D81356D1883CA256A5700036CEE
Sylvia and Charles Viertel
Charles Viertel was one of eleven children born into the poor family of a German farther and English mother. An achiever since childhood, he graduated dux of the Brisbane Central Technical High School and was awarded a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Queensland.
He had a strong commitment to helping people who helped themselves, offering a hand of support when the need was great. He gave quietly and without expectation of public recognition. One of the projects he supported during his lifetime was the establishment of a Chair of Ophthalmology at the University of Queensland.
In leaving a $60 million charitable foundation at the full discretion of his Trustees, Mr Viertel declared that it be the policy of his Trustees to disregard those charities with high administrative expenses.
He thus laid the framework for a Foundation which nurtured his characteristics of keeping an eye firmly fixed on achieving results and helping those willing to help themselves.
Sylvia Viertel was a quiet, gentle person who preferred the simple things in life to the corporate world in which her husband revelled. Sylvia and Charles married when they were both in the their 40s and she preferred always to remain in the background as a home maker and keen gardener.
Sylvia Viertel suffered from a debilitating eye disease which initiated Charles' interest in Ophthalmology.
http://www.indiginet.com.au/catsin/viertel.html
Cheers,
Sunstone.
