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Wealth’s true purpose is to make a difference to the community in a tangible way.
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What is “Mard Philanthropy”?
Mard Philanthropy is a long-term self-sustaining philanthropic enterprise carried on by a group of trusts and entities in Australia, Israel and the United States. The first entity within the group was established in 2002. Our mission is to carry out activities to make a real difference to the community on a “free-to-fail” basis. “Mard” is an acronym for “Make A Real Difference”.
We are a “pre-endowed” group. We do not seek donations from anyone. We fund our own active charity projects from our own resources. However, in Australia we provide additional support by way of passive charity, that is, donations to existing charities operated by others. We also provide pro bono legal, finance and marketing consulting for charities.
We have also been an angel investor in, and an angel lender to, Israeli hi-tech enterprises where their inventions can be used for charitable purposes, such as advances in medicine, or new technology that can be utilised in education.
Our benefactors shall remain anonymous
Our benefactors asked us that we ensure their anonymity in accordance with the eighth principle of Maimonides’s “Degrees of Charity”.
What is our vision?
Our only task is to invest our capital and to use our profits to provide charity.
Fortunately, our benefactors were generous and we believe that they provided, both in their lifetimes and from their deceased estates, the funds necessary for us to implement their vision. We are privileged to carry out their rewarding and challenging legacy.
Our benefactors did not set out specific philanthropic goals for us. Their view was that "Wealth by itself is a meaningless concept. Our true belief is that we are measured by what we do with our wealth. Wealth’s true purpose is to make a difference to the community in a tangible way". In their words....
We must leave at the end of our lives a living, creative activity to
Make A Real Difference. Our context is that we escaped the Nazi holocaust but we must remember to
give sustenance and joy in the Jewish revival.
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Our benefactors deliberately did not provide us with specific instructions. Rather, we were merely given a “blank piece of paper” and asked to design a few charitable projects while considering the principles or concepts of “objectivism”, “individualism”, “liberty”, “secular Judaism”, and the strengthening of cultural and education ties between Israel and the world.
By “objectivism” we mean that the moral purpose of life is one’s own happiness and our noblest activity is productive achievement. There is, however, a relationship between objectivism and the philosophy of “reason, achievement, individualism and freedom”.
We value our privacy
We carry out our charitable work in private. We intend to seek out our own projects to implement our brand of active charity.