The Weinberg s It may seem odd to describe an organization with its name on 87 Hawaii buildings as low-key. But that's an apt description of the $2 billion Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, which shuns outside attention as it quietly pumps about $14 million into local nonprofits every year.
Foundation legacy
No one knows its generosity better
than Hawaii's poor and needyAlvin Awaya
By Lisa Asato
lasato@starbulletin.comThose funds -- $144 million over the past decade -- have gone toward building a birthing center at Kahuku Hospital, a gym at Palama Settlement, and elderly housing on Philip Street, a couple blocks from a teen center for the Boys and Girls Club of Hawaii. And those are just some of the buildings erected in the foundation's name since Harry Weinberg died in 1990, bequeathing nearly $1 billion to the foundation to help the poor.
"There are not enough words to tell you how much they (the Weinberg Foundation) mean to the state of Hawaii," said Dick Grimm, president of the Hawaii Foodbank Inc.
"They certainly have the aloha and mahalo of every nonprofit organization in the state.
"They have taken the compassion and art of granting funds to nonprofits to heights we never dreamed of."
Taking that compassion and giving to new heights is primarily the responsibility of Alvin Awaya, an accountant by training who was appointed sole Hawaii trustee by Harry Weinberg, his boss of nearly two decades."It's not easy trying to do what's right," Awaya said. "Like anything else you please 50 percent of the people half of the time. The other 50 percent are not happy with what you say or do. In the end hopefully you help people."
Awaya said the foundation prefers to be private about its donations because the foundation -- known to give out $1 million at a time -- does not want to overshadow other givers. Instead, the foundation holds private luncheons at Sheraton Waikiki or The Willows, where recipients receive a check and hear brief speeches on Harry Weinberg's life and the foundation.
WITH $2.17 BILLION in assets, the Weinberg foundation ranks 24th in size and 31st in giving among the nation's 100 largest foundations, according to The Foundation Center's most recent data.
Foundations are required by law to give away 5 percent of their assets each year, which pegs the Weinberg Foundation's total annual giving at around $100 million.
While it is dwarfed by others such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ($15.5 billion) and The Ford Foundation ($14.7 billion), the Weinberg Foundation is the sole foundation with that high an endowment base that maintains a presence in Hawaii, said Grimm of the Foodbank.
"Their assets are phenomenal," he said. "Others may be bigger but they're not in Hawaii -- the Weinberg Foundation is."
The foundation's local grant director, Gailene Wong, said the only criteria the foundation uses is that recipients must be nonprofits that help the poor and needy, defined as those whose financial resources fall below half the individuals in a community. She said she does not keep track of the number of requests for grants that come in nor the amount that are approved.
"We're interested in who we're approving," she said.
Awaya said the foundation takes a "more informal" approach to grant making. "We don't ask for solicitations," he said. "We tend to go out and say ... 'We like what you're doing, what can we do to make your program reach completion?'"
Four years ago, Mark Obatake, executive director of the Hawaii Centers for Independent Living, moved his group into the Kuwili Center, a converted warehouse off Nimitz Highway. The renovated Weinberg property, which now houses about 12 groups, was rebuilt as a hub for nonprofits, where agencies share conference rooms, lunch rooms and copy machines, freeing more money for services.
"We had the idea (of creating a nonprofit hub) ... and didn't have the means to implement it," Obatake said. "Along comes the Weinberg Foundation saying, 'I like what you guys are thinking,' and they bumped up the idea and made it even better." Obatake estimated the foundation granted about $1.5 million to his group, three other agencies and for capital improvements. "And that's not the whole building, just one phase," he said.
The Weinberg Foundation was established in 1959 by Jeanette and her husband, Harry, an Austrian immigrant who grew up poor in Baltimore and quit school in the sixth grade to work in his father's auto repair business.
Harry made his money in real estate and stocks, and sometimes married the two ventures, quietly buying up a company's stocks only to sell them back for land. He was best known in Hawaii for his ownership of Honolulu Rapid Transit Ltd., which he seized in a 1959 proxy fight.
Before he died of cancer in 1990, Harry left instructions that the foundation money not go toward universities, colleges, orchestras or museums, but rather be used this way: 25 percent each to predominantly Jewish charitable organizations and non-Jewish charitable organizations, with the remaining 50 percent going to charities serving the needy regardless of race, religion or creed.
In 11 years, his gift to the foundation -- a multimillion-dollar estate of securities and real-estate holdings from Hawaii to Maryland, has more than doubled. That's primarily due to marketable securities, which comprise about two-thirds of the foundation's assets, Wong said.
Steve Sofos, president and chief executive officer of Sofos Realty Corp., and a friend and colleague of Harry's, said: "The foundation's grown larger than the man. In the business community when people mentioned Harry Weinberg people cringed because he was one of the original corporate raiders. He was tough on Alexander & Baldwin, Amfac, Dillingham Corp., Castle & Cooke.
"Now that his foundation is doing so much charitable work people go 'Oh, good for him.'"
Those involved in the nonprofit sector here credit the foundation for coming through for them during the 1990s decade-long economic slump when the state and for-profit organizations cut back on giving.
The foundation leads a trend toward giving unrestricted funds, which are "critical to the well-being of nonprofits" in an increasingly business-like environment, said Gratia Bone, director of development and public affairs of the private nonprofit Child & Family Service.
"What that says to me is that they're trusting us to spend money," Bone said. "(That) we are experts in our organization and that we can take this dollar and put this where it's most needed instead of them telling us, which is what a lot of foundations do."
His name may not be familiar, but Alvin Awaya is an influential man in Hawaii. Alvin Awaya
The man behind the money
By Lisa Asato
lasato@starbulletin.com"Every person in this town has called me for some help in some shape or form," said Awaya, the sole Hawaii trustee of the $2 billion Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.
"Sometimes I say yes, sometimes I say no." Not that there's anything wrong with asking, he said, "if you believe in the cause."
In Hawaii, the Baltimore, Md.-based foundation's annual giving has run as high as $17 million; this year, it was about $9 million by the end of July, Awaya said.
Spearheading the foundation's local giving is a big task, he said, but it is a responsibility he thrives on.
"I love my work," said Awaya, a University of Hawaii accounting graduate and a 1962 Kailua High School graduate. "I love what I do. I want to do as much as I can for Harry and Jeanette first of all. I want to represent them properly. I want them to receive all the accolades and be remembered. We come and go but it's their money and their story to be told in perpetuity."Awaya's ties to the Weinbergs began 30 years ago when Awaya, then 27, answered an ad for an accountant. After three days of working for Harry, a financier famous for his cantankerous style, Awaya wanted to quit.
But he stuck it out, working for Harry for almost 20 years and later joining the foundation as the only trustee outside the East Coast.
When Harry died in 1990, he left nearly his entire estate, $900 million, to the foundation, with specific instructions that it help the poor.
"Clearly what's happening in Hawaii is Alvin's direction," said Joe Blanco, who developed Weinberg properties before becoming the governor's high-tech adviser. "Obviously he needs the support of the other trustees but there's not a lot of them."
At 57, Awaya is the youngest of the five trustees. He holds a lifetime job until he reaches 70, then he will begin a year-to-year contract until 75.
Grants approved locally are reviewed by the four other trustees: Harry's brother Nathan Weinberg, Bernard Siegel and Shale Stiller, all of Baltimore, and Robert Kelly of Scranton, Pa.
While they usually follow his lead on grants to Hawaii nonprofits, Awaya added, "Without their approval it won't go, I can tell you that."
Of his local staff of about 16, Awaya said: "A lot of my people look at what I say or do, but it's more about setting ground rules rather than 'yes' or 'no.'"
Awaya describes himself as a decision-maker. Friends and consultants describe him as reserved, if not shy, and very smart.
"He went to the Harry Weinberg school of business, he had the benefit of working for a very good businessman for a long time," said Bill Mills, owner of Bill Mills Investment Co. "He didn't survive there without picking up a lot of knowledge of how things work in Hawaii. There's not a piece of property in Hawaii he hasn't seen."
Lloyd Sueda of Sueda & Associates Inc. AIA, said Awaya is "so low key that if you went to a cocktail party you wouldn't know who he was. He's not flamboyant. He's just a normal guy."
And although "Alvin does his share to make sure Hawaii get its share of the moneys," Sueda would not describe him as "powerful."
"I think he's more committed to help the state of Hawaii," said Sueda, a consultant who often works, and golfs, with Awaya.
While Harry was not known to spend money to improve his properties, Awaya has a different philosophy.
"All the money generated (locally) goes back into Hawaii nonprofits," Awaya said. He sees renovation as a revenue-maker for the organization that owns about 85 properties.
"The foundation has upgraded their portfolio property from when Harry Weinberg was alive because he did not believe in renovating properties," said Steve Sofos, who leased out Weinberg warehouses and sold Harry properties. "When Harry bought the (Lahaina) shopping center he didn't do much of anything as far as maintenance, repair and upgrades. The foundation has remodeled the buildings. It's beautiful."
Sofos also pointed to other Awaya-era projects: The Willows and Sam Choy's Breakfast Lunch & Crab, which was "a beat up old warehouse" until the foundation fixed it up and leased it to Hawaii chef Sam Choy.
"Now look at it," Sofos said. "It's a very viable business. It makes the property more valuable. They put the money back into the property that's going to generate more income for them. Alvin's a smart man to know that and do that."