Joelle O'Reilly-Hyland has always
believed in the goodness of peoples’ hearts. But she’s never been naïve about her belief. She’s a
successful business woman who founded a major investment company, Ounnavarra
Capital; but
she’s gone beyond just making money and giving it away. To borrow the term
coined by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, she practices capitalism with a
conscience, and believes strongly that capitalism and business can be harnessed
to catalyze significant social progress.
“We believe that challenges must be
audacious, but achievable, tied to measurable goals. And understandable by all,” reads a
mission statement of the X Prize Foundation, which awards cash prizes to
organizations and projects that meet specific humanitarian goals.
O'Reilly-Hyland is an active supporter of the X-Prize foundation and is also
heavily involved with improving educational
opportunities in
developing countries. Educating girls is a major priority for Joelle and her
husband, Paul O’Reilly-Hyland, who is also a partner in Ounavarra Capital’s
charitable foundation by the same name that his wife started.
A severe decline in charitable giving
is “an unfortunate byproduct of the global
recession” Joelle O'Reilly-Hyland said late last year after she and her
husband completed an Olympic Triathlon that raised funds for Ubuntu Africa.
Ubuntu Africa provides assistance to African children who are HIV positive.
Optimism is a key factor that drives Joelle O'Reilly-Hyland to keep doing the
extra work that she does. You won’t hear her complaining because “some” doesn’t
turn out to be “more”. She said after completing the triathlon that if the dollars she raised help at least one child,
“then it [the effort] was worth it.”
As far as celebrity philanthropists go, Joelle
O'Reilly-Hyland keeps a low profile. She’s
an outspoken supporter of the Fabretto Foundation, a charitable organization
that helps children in Central America that and is named for its founder, and
Italian missionary. Google Wyser Pratte’s name along with
Fabretto Foundation and you’ll find blog posts she’s written that praise the
organization and which mention different ways to donate. But what you won’t
find is any high-profile images of Joelle O'Reilly-Hyland on Fabretto’s
website.
Joelle O'Reilly-Hyland’s charitable
organization, the Ounavarra Foundation, has helped design innovative ways to make it easy for people to
makes small, continuous donations over time to Fabretto and other foundations
that are structured like annuities. O'Reilly-Hyland is a very successful
finance strategist who founded Minerva Capital in the 1990s, but who never lost
touch with financial fundamentals, as many money moguls do. The investment
vehicles she created make it possible to efficiently collect very small
donations from many people which add up to huge funds that can help millions of
people improve their situation. The idea of large collections of many small
sums is a concept largely forgotten in today’s business world.
