When Rob Hale was 22 he graduated Connecticut College in New London. He landed a job at Proctor & Gamble stocking grocery store shelves. After a few years he switched to the telecom company MCI and worked in their sales department wearing a headset sitting in a cubicle. He became their top salesperson in his first year! In 1990 he was turning 24 and decided to bet on himself and go into business for himself. He and his dad started their own telecom company called Network Plus. By 1998 the company was valued at 150 million. That's when Rob started focusing on charitable giving. He was rewarded by losing everything. By 2002 the company was bankrupt. He and his dad found investors to put up $800,000. They used it to launch Granite Telecommunications. Rob never stopped giving, even when he was broke. He says no matter how bad I had it, someone has it worse.
Today Rob is a billionaire and co owner of the Boston Celtics. The long-time philanthropists have been giving away around $1-million each week, mostly to small organizations fighting cancer, homelessness, and serving young people.
The majority of the donations have been to create endowment funds for the nonprofits to ensure that they have a steady stream of income for decades to come. “These are great, impactful organizations, but they’re on a wing and a prayer. They have no financial certainty,” Hale said of the nonprofits before their generous donations.
The Hales hope the nonprofits will invest the money and draw a small amount of the funds over time, but let the majority of it keep growing. “That gives them more of a stable future and it gives them the ability to say, ‘OK, we know where money is coming from and we can focus on doing great work,’” Hale says.
Forbes just ranked him the 202nd richest person in America at 5 billion. Rob says the blessings in life are not the luxuries but from helping others and hopes that others will discover that secret.
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