Nonprofit fulfilment

"Our philosophy is so much a part of our life that you can’t separate it from everything else,” is how Russy Sumariwalla explained his lifelong involvement in charity and corporate philanthropy to Doug Ernst, executive editor of the Napa Valley Register, alluding to his Zoroastrian heritage.

Currently a resident of St Helena, California, where he had intended to retire, the 69-year-old "international non-profit guru” has instead been conscripted as chairman of the Community Foundation of the Napa Valley (CFNP). Founded as a vehicle for charity giving in 1994, the CFNP manages and distributes funds from individual, family, corporate and organizational donors totalling more than $ 7.5 million, as per its website.

"In 1992, when United Way International (UWI) needed help rebuilding following the ouster of (its lead executive) due to financial mismanagement, it turned to Sumariwalla, who had worked for United Way of America for nearly two decades before retiring in 1991,” writes Ernst. ("International nonprofit guru set to work valley,” Napa Valley Register, March 29, 2003). The UWI’s original board of 20 directors was down to four before it was rebuilt, its former chairman Herb Ascherman told Ernst. Sumariwalla who has earned a reputation as an effective leader and consultant spent the first eight months as a volunteer working without a salary, until the UWI regained its footing, notes Ernst. "They brought Russy in to temporarily hold (the organization) together. He ended up running it as president for the five years I was chairman,” noted Ascherman, describing Sumariwalla as "a very careful, very methodical person, and he works 24 hours a day.”

Russy and Anita Sumariwalla: managing philanthropy

Sumariwalla is one of seven children born to the late Jaiji and Dinshaw Sumariwalla of Bombay. After his MA and LLB from Bombay University he went abroad to garner a sheaf of degrees and pursue studies at various institutions: LLM from the University of Virginia; MA from the University of Massachusetts; additional post graduate studies at The Hague Academy of International Law in the Netherlands; Institute of World Affairs at Connecticut; Institut International de Recherche et de Formation en vue du Developpement Harmo­nise, Paris; Harvard University Graduate School of Business Executive Management Program.

When he went to the US at the age of 25 his aim had been to make a career with the United Nations. The reason he deviated from that goal was that "each time I tried for a position in the secretariat both at the UN and at its specialized agencies I was informed that the ‘Indian quota’ was substantially oversubscribed and as a result they were not accepting applications from Indian nationals. The greatest irony was that when I became a US citizen (in 1976) and sought a position at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, I was told that the US quota was oversubscribed!” Sumariwalla responded to Parsiana’s query.

A student and observer of the nonprofit management and research field for over 40 years, Sumariwalla had been senior vice president for research, development and program evaluation at the United Way of America. His bio data lists his many positions in the nonprofit sector. Co-founder and first executive director of the National Center for Charities Statistics, co-chair (1996-2002) of the Aspen Institute Nonprofit Sector Research Fund and senior associate at the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute in Washington DC, Sumariwalla is also a director of the Napa Valley Symphony and the Napa Valley Repertory Theater. He is a member of the Research Advisory Council of the University of San Francisco Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management.

Author of over 200 papers, books and reports on various aspects of nonprofit management including accounting, budgeting and charities regulation, Suma­riwalla’s "definitive work is a huge textbook used by the Internal Revenue Service to determine whether an agency fits the nonprofit framework,” writes Ernst. The founder president of Global Philanthropy and Nonprofits, Sumariwalla’s post retirement assignments include national and international organizations such as The Asia Foundation, the University of Southern California Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy, the International Society for Third Sector Research, etc.

A faculty member of the National Academy of Voluntarism of the United Way America, Sumariwalla has lectured at Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley. His speaking engagements in over 30 countries include seminars in Beijing and Shanghai and the keynote address for the seven-day inaugural campaign of the United Way of Baroda which drew an audience of over 400,000 people, notes his bio data.

Sumariwalla’s devotion to the non-profit world is total. He and Anita Hurlimann, an artist from Switzerland, were married 37 years ago. "We have no children. We consider the children of the world as our own,” he writes. As he told Ernst, "I’m not wealthy, so I needed to do some work. This is my life, what I want to do. I don’t play golf.”