Making it - and giving it away

Tony Falkenstein

He gave away $3 million worth of shares last year but Tony Falkenstein describes himself as "a bit selfish".

The 57-year-old founder and chief executive of listed water cooler company Just Water is sincere in that unflattering assessment of his philanthropic efforts.

The recipients of his generosity - the staff and students at Onehunga High's business school, Auckland University's business school and the Unitec school of business management - are unlikely to be as dismissive.

In June Falkenstein donated $1 million worth of Just Water shares to each organisation.

Based on the company's performance over the last year that ought to generate about $84,000 a year in dividends.

It's no small gesture for a man who, while obviously wealthy, doesn't yet feature on the National Business Review's Rich List.

What Falkenstein means is that he is not prepared to pour money into any abstract cause, however charitable that might be.

"I suppose I'm probably a bit selfish in that I really want to have an impact. I'm less inclined to give money to something general where someone else was spending it," he says.

There is one other reason Falkenstein can claim a degree of selfishness.

The personal satisfaction he has achieved from the Onehunga business school project is greater than any of his more financially lucrative successes.

"This has been the best thing I've ever done," he says. "As an entrepreneur I take on projects and this is just another project.

"It happens not to be giving me money but it is certainly giving me much greater reward than anything I've done before."

The Onehunga business school was launched in 2003 with $300,000 backing from Just Water.

Based at the high school it offers year 10 to 13 students courses covering international and entrepreneurial business skills.

By years 12 and 13, students take tertiary-level papers, including commercial law, marketing, management studies and economics.

Its stated vision is "to position Onehunga High School as the business secondary school, and the model adopted by other schools, and/or Government".

It has already achieved that goal. The Ministry of Education plans to adopt it as the model for the introduction of business studies into the national curriculum in 2006.

Falkenstein is himself a former pupil of Onehunga.

He was "never a star" and admits to taking two attempts to pass his University Entrance exams.

He had no further contact with the school until 1992 when his company was opening a building near by. The then Prime Minister Jim Bolger was coming so he asked the school if they wanted to send some students to meet him.

To his surprise they sent a group of musicians who livened up the opening ceremony.

"I thought, gee what can I give them in return. So we ended up creating a music award that was worth about $3000."

A few years later, when he was living in the UK, he had the idea for a business school.

"I was reading Herald Online and saw a story about a global entrepreneurship survey. It found that New Zealanders were good at starting businesses but right down the bottom of 29 countries measured when it came to continuing businesses past five years."

He had also just read about a UK Government programme to fund schools that wanted to concentrate on growth areas such as biotechnology or IT.

He looked at how the idea might work in New Zealand and was disturbed to find this country was just about the only one in the developed world that didn't have business studies in the curriculum.

"So a kid studying French can start at 12 and have a pretty good understanding of the subject by the time they get to university. But a person at the business school at Auckland University is starting back at the 12-year-old level," he says.

"I just thought, if we can bring in better kids coming out of schools then we'll get better graduates coming out of universities."

The decision he had to make was whether to set up a pressure group to lobby Government or to set up an example and have that as a model.

Having successfully achieved the latter Falkenstein has no immediate plans for further donations but is optimistic that he can boost his contribution to the school by raising the profits at Just Water and increasing the dividend.

Despite his being one of the most notable philanthropic works of 2004, the biggest charitable distributor of personal wealth in New Zealand was, once again, Warehouse boss Stephen Tindall and family.

The Tindall Foundation - funded by 66.3 million Warehouse shares gifted by the Tindalls - made donations of $7 million in the year to July 2004. Since it was set up in 1995 the foundation has given out $50 million to a diverse range of charities including Rape Crisis, Outward Bound and Citizens Advice Bureaus as well as young entrepreneur schemes.

On another level altogether is Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who retained his spot as the world's leading philanthropist in 2004 (according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy - a publication specialising in the field).

Gates and his wife gifted about $5 billion last year to their charitable organisation - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In New Zealand many philanthropists are quietly making a difference in their communities without grabbing national headlines.

In Tauranga millionaire Des Ferrow has attained folk-hero status for donations to community projects made through his Tauranga Charitable Trust.

In a rare feature last year the media-shy property developer was described by the Bay of Plenty Times as "the stuff of local legend".

To Falkenstein it comes as no surprise that people with such generous streaks should be successful in business.

"People talk about go-getters but they're not the ones that make it," he says.

"I've always said to our staff that you get a hell of a lot more back if you are a go-giver."