The Living Room Philanthropist

Though Virginia had advisors and consultants, it is quite clear that she, who valued professionalism, made a conscious decision to redefine charitable giving by being actively and intimately involved in all her philanthropy. This approach was unique for the era, rare among women, and foreshadowed the donor-engaged and directed philanthropy of the twenty-first century. ...

Virginia loved her adopted Arizona home, and it may well have been that the West, with its open horizons and ever-expanding possibilities, resonated with Virginia's desire to be liberated from traditional philanthropic giving and from the demeaning stereotype of women adding grace but little intellectual leadership to charitable giving. Virginia, without question, had matured into a powerful, visionary, and effective leader.

The term "living room philanthropist," as fondly applied to Virginia, derived from the fact that countless people working on behalf of one charity or another found themselves discussing project proposals while seated in her living room, for just as Virginia delighted in sitting with close friends around a kitchen table, she liked to conduct business from the comfort of her home. Handwritten checks in generous amounts frequently emerged from these living-room discussions.

It was Virginia, in her quest for exactitude and excellence, who judged the merits of every request and, amazingly, wrote and typed all her professional correspondence. Virginia would type, "My board has considered your request", but Virginia was the board, just as she was "kb," Kitty Brandleknees, the secretary typing hundreds of business letters on her manual Royal typewriter.

Virginia worked long hours,often late into the night and seated at a huge desk in her homey but cluttered office,with her beloved cat, Gus, keeping her company as he reclined among her papers, napping on unanswered letters. ...

Over time, Virginia's workload took on crushing proportions. Anyone possessed of such extensive wealth could have lived more extravagantly than Virginia and with far less dedication to others. She could have declined the work of carrying on Paul Galvin's charitable trust, or she could have simply fulfilled that one promise, a giant task in itself, and then chosen to live her final years following Ken's death traveling the world, luxuriating in glamorous homes and circumstances. As an independently wealthy widow, she could have bought and enjoyed nearly anything on earth, but Virginia chose to remain in the same pleasant but unpretentious home she and Ken had chosen and shared together, to drive the same 1986 Cadillac, and to save things, from rubber bands to ball gowns, in case they might be used again or given to someone who needed them. Her fortune, which she had always viewed as Paul Galvin's, was a means to a far greater end than mere personal gratification. True, she had been deeply influenced by the values of her grandmother and by both of her husbands. Yet in each of our lives, the choice is solely ours how best to spend our hours, give our gifts, and count our blessings.

Virginia devoted the last phase of her life almost entirely to sharing her wealth, time, and heartfelt empathy for those in need. In a career spanning nearly half a century, Virginia struck an admirable balance between a public life of philanthropic visibility and a private life of personal simplicity, and her use of her own wealth to raise the quality of life for countless others made her a tremendously powerful role model. She exemplified a woman of "unselfed" grace anchored in financial acuity, diplomatic tenacity, and independence of vision.

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