From donors who touch many, no new grants Shapiro Foundation

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From donors who touch many, no new grants
Hurt by Madoff, Shapiros will honor existing pledges

The Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family Foundation donated $200,000 to the Children's Museum in 2007.
By Beth Healy

Today, the heads of 80 nonprofits around Boston will receive a letter that the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family Foundation did not want to send. The organization will make no new grants in 2009, as it regroups after the Bernard L. Madoff investment scandal, which claimed about $145 million, or nearly half of its assets. The foundation will give out about $9 million, however, honoring all of its existing financial pledges.


It's another blow to Boston's nonprofit scene, and a glum moment for one of the city's largest and most generous donors, which has given about $100 million to local charities over the past decade.

"We are apprising you of this situation as early as possible to allow you to either seek alternate sources of funding or to adjust your plans for this year," says the letter, written by the foundation's executive director, Jean Whitney. It goes on to say that the group hopes its decision "will ensure the long-term health and stability of the foundation."

On a daily basis, Bostonians benefit from the Shapiros' generosity, more than many may realize. In 2008 alone, the Shapiro foundation gave about $18 million to dozens of nonprofits in healthcare, arts and culture, education, and Jewish causes. Anyone who has viewed a film at the Boston Mu seum of Fine Arts, or knew someone who underwent heart surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital, or taken a child to a play at the Children's Museum stage, has seen Shapiro money at work.

"It's a stunning spread of interests that the family has had," said Paul Levy, chief executive of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, one of the Boston hospitals to which the Shapiros have given millions of dollars over the years. Levy, who has spent significant time in one-on-one meetings with Carl Shapiro, observed, "He feels in his soul that it is a personal responsibility to use your wealth for the greater good of the public."

One group that won't be receiving funds this year as a result of the Madoff losses is Gateway Arts. The Brookline arts center received $100,000 over three years from the Shapiro Foundation that helped 10 disabled people become working artists. Director Rae Edelson said the Shapiros and their staff of three had challenged the group to meet difficult goals, including raising matching funds for the grants, and the arts center met those challenges.

"To me, it was just the scope of that family foundation, that they think big and they think small," Edelson said. "It's really going to take a toll, to not have that."

That's what bothers Carl Shapiro most about the Madoff ordeal, friends and associates say. He entrusted not only hundreds of millions of dollars of his personal wealth to the New York money manager, who allegedly lost $50 billion in a Ponzi scheme, but about 40 percent of the foundation's money. Shapiro was one of Madoff's original investors and considered him a friend. Now, that betrayed trust is having a huge impact on Shapiro's charitable work.

man who built his fortune as a dress manufacturer in New Bedford and in New York's garment district, Shapiro has spent much of his time on philanthropy since selling his Kay Windsor Inc. in 1971. He and his wife, Ruth Shapiro, and their three daughters are trustees of the foundation, which had grown to $324 million in assets by the end of 2007, as the Shapiros continued to donate millions of dollars from family trusts to the fund.

The Shapiro family declined to be interviewed for this story.

Even now, at 95, Shapiro is actively involved with his favorite charities, people who know him say. Grant decisions are made in a boardroom these days, at the foundation's Back Bay office. But for years, it was just Carl and Ruth, a Wellesley College graduate with a love for the arts, talking the grants over at home.

For the many capital projects they undertook - a science center at Brandeis University to attract top scientists and students, a renovation of the public waiting area at Beth Israel's ambulatory surgical center - Carl was known to pore over architectural plans and make hard-hat visits to see the construction progress.

Levy, the Beth Israel chief executive, said he recalls talking to Carl Shapiro in exhaustive detail about the surgical area renovation. Shapiro wanted patients to have a better experience in the waiting room. He wanted to reorganize the hodgepodge of desks in the reception area and weighed in on color choices and chair design. And he badgered Levy to get large enough swatches of fabric so he could judge whether they worked in the room.

"There's an incredible attention to detail," Levy said. "He wasn't thinking about the cost. He was thinking about what we were trying to accomplish. Carl comes in and says, 'I'm going to pay for this and we're going to do it right.' "

Brandeis, the Waltham university that is a favored cause of the Shapiros, has over the years received more than $60 million from the family for buildings and programs. Carl Shapiro is a trustee emeritus at the school, and he's not afraid to speak up.

In an October board meeting, when the university's financial chief was discussing growing losses in the Brandeis endowment, Shapiro grilled her about the poor performance, according to two people who were briefed on the meeting but wanted to remain anonymous because they weren't authorized to speak publicly. He was clearly frustrated by the investment losses, and was asking whether the university should fire the managers responsible.

Little did Shapiro know that his own investment manager was not just losing money in the market downturn, but allegedly swindling him and thousands of other investors.

It's a subject the Shapiros have not yet wanted to talk about. Their names are etched in the stone of academic and medical buildings across Boston, and their pictures have been taken at countless galas in Boston and Palm Beach, Fla. But they are highly private people, especially now.

Their daughter Rhonda "Ronny" Shapiro Zinner is president of the foundation. She's an overseer at the Museum of Fine Arts and a well-known figure in philanthropic circles. She is married to Michael J. Zinner, chief of surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

And she's tough: Three summers ago, she took a foul ball hit by the Yankees' Derek Jeter to the head as she sat behind home plate at Fenway Park - and made light of it, despite needing stitches. Then too, she was embarrassed by the spotlight - the TV replays, the media coverage.

Her sister, Ellen Jaffe, also is well known in the nonprofit world and is an MFA trustee. Jaffe is married to Robert Jaffe, an investment broker who helped raise money for Madoff and who says that he, too, was duped in the scandal.

The third sister, Linda Waintrup, is also active at the MFA and the Huntington Theatre Company.

The Shapiro foundation is hoping it can offer new grants in 2010, but is making no promises. The foundation won't leave any projects unfinished that are currently underway, its representatives said. For example, the foundation will make good on its $15 million gift for a soaring glass courtyard that's part of the new wing at the Museum of Fine Arts, slated to open next year. And Boston Medical Center will still get its $15 million, 245,000-square-foot Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Ambulatory Care Center.

Marshall Carter, chairman of the board at Boston Medical, said Carl Shapiro's legacy is safe. "He has been extraordinarily generous to the whole Boston medical community, and a wonderful man," he said.

Beth Healy can be reached at bhealy@globe.com.