Hewison Private Wealth (HPW), the financial planning business founded 30 years ago by John Hewison, has established the Hewison Foundation, a public ancillary fund (PAF) to support victims of domestic violence and young people with depression.
The managing director of HPW, Andrew Hewison, says that “out of domestic violence comes homelessness and many child-related issues, including depression”.
“The key aims of the foundation were as a result of the input of our staff – the 23 staff at our recent staff conference,” he says.
“The philosophy of the foundation is to look to grow the corpus, make sure the foundation goes into perpetuity and doesn’t have an end date; and any of the grants we make have to be in line with our mission and our vision.”
Hewison says the business has “just given so much to so many people – so many stakeholders, staff members, shareholders, people we’ve done business with”.
“We feel we’re in a really fortunate position now with the business the way it is that we can do something on a more major level,” he says.
“The Hewison name can start giving something back to the community.
“We have always internally done our bit and done our best to give something back. Annually we run a charity trivia night. In October this year we raised $8000 for the Sacred Heart Mission in St Kilda, but we now have a platform which enables us to start generating a corpus of funds and using our expertise internally to manage that.”
Looking after not-for-profits
Hewison says HPW already looks after about $30 million for not-for-profit funds.
“We’ve got extensive experience in understanding the needs of not-for-profits, so why not apply that knowledge and experience to our own foundation – and also give our clients in general an opportunity to contribute to something?” he says.
“They’re often looking at different ways, and perhaps a private ancillary fund is not the way they want to go, but they still want to do something.
“So if we can pull the resources together and create something that’s going to be sustainable over the long term then that’s what we’re going to do.”
HPW has seeded the PAF with $60,000 and Hewison says the firm is likely to make contributions of a similar amount each year. The foundation has a long-term target of gifting $100,000 a year, which implies a corpus of about $2 million to $2.5 million. It aims to have a corpus of $500,000 by year four, and $1 million within 8 years.
Hewison says that after the first four years a PAF is required to gift a minimum of 5 per cent of the value of the fund, or a minimum of $11,000 each year, to entities with deductible gift recipient status.
Like self-managed super funds
PAFs are sometimes likened to self-managed super funds, in that they are both trust structures, governed by a trust deed, and are required to have formal investment strategies.
“And just like we do with most of our self-funded retirees, we like to generate the income needed from the cash flow of the portfolio we are managing, and then allow the growth to compound on itself and see the capital increase over time,” Hewison says.
He says the foundation is “an entirely separate structure [from HPW] and it’s governed by its own board of directors, which is currently Hewison [Private Wealth] directors John Hewison, Chris Morcom and myself”.
“And from that point of view it does operate as entirely its own structure, under its own set of rules and regulations,” he says.
Hewison says the foundation is running its first event, a golf day at Victoria Golf Club, on February 12, 2016.
“And we accepted on the night [of the launch] sponsorship donations of $10,000 – so that’s a great start for the golf day as well,” he says.
Hewison says that before HPW established the foundation it “did put serious consideration into making direct donations to Future2”, the foundation of the Financial Planning Association.
“But ultimately we feel that we can do more,” Hewison says.
“It’s one thing to give money, but we think that by using our knowledge and expertise in the growth and management of a foundation of our own we’ll ultimately end up providing a greater benefit to the community as distinct from donating money to another great cause.
“We’re certainly not looking to compete against the Future2 Foundation, but we think it’s the right step for our organisation to create something of our own.”
Coincidental, but apt
Hewison says it is coincidental, but apt, that the foundation has been set up in HPW’s thirtieth year.
“This business has been built and it’s been steered so beautifully by [my father] John, and I took over the MD role at the start of the year,” Hewison says.
“John is chairman and on board with the future direction of the business, but we’re going through a bit of a rebirth stage – we’re one of the youngest mature businesses out there. His ideas for where the company is going are still as young as anyone in the business.
“But it ties in really nicely with taking the direction of the Hewison Foundation and making that a part of the next phase of our life.”
This article was edited on 2/12/15 to correct the status of the Hewison Foundation PAF to public ancillary fund.
