Client Impact: A Conversation with Dave Hunt

At Clearsight, we sought to discover the broader effects of our team’s work. As such, we explored one of our core values, Impact, to try to assess the “greater good.” We learned many of our former clients have put their post-transaction resources and time toward community and philanthropic engagements. We are proud to have played a part in enabling these individuals to fuel their passions and enhance the broader community. This Client Impact series highlights these entrepreneurs, their positive works, and the greater effect on the community.

Dave Hunt is a founder, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and former Clearsight client. After successfully selling Landon IP to CPA Global in 2014, Dave thought retirement and a quieter life of philanthropy was on the horizon. However, a persistent desire to learn, lead, and contribute to the community brought him back to the workforce. In recent years, Dave has founded Ensemble IP, joined the Creative Destruction Lab as a mentor, and become an angel investor. Clearsight caught up with Dave to discuss the positive philanthropic impact he and his wife, Amy, have had and how running a business can be a means to expanding charitable works. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Clearsight Advisors (CA): What have you been up to since selling Landon IP?

Dave Hunt (DH): Shortly after I retired, I got incredibly bored of it. So I decided to study data science and reenter the field when I could, building software for the patent community. Then I became an angel investor in startup companies and a mentor through what’s called the Creative Destruction Lab. Now I’m a mentor to startups and I’m back with another company that I started in 2019, Ensemble IP.

CA: What kind of startups do you advise?

DH: The Creative Destruction Lab, called CDL, is a program based out of the University of Toronto, but has now spread to about a dozen universities, many of them Canadian. There are high-tech companies that come out of universities and they need business support, advice, entrepreneurial guidance, and funding, either through venture capital or angel funding. As an angel investor, I’m in a couple of streams where I have more experience. I’ve been doing it for three years and professionally it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done. I really love it.

CA: Philanthropically, what have you been putting your time towards?

DH: It’s hard to make money, but it’s also hard to give it away. I didn’t recognize that at first. So once we sold Landon IP, we created a charitable trust where we flowed some of the capital from the sale for the purpose of giving to charities. But when you dig into that, it requires a lot of work to decide on the right charity and whether they’ll use the funds for their intended purpose.

At a high level, my wife and I give in two directions: one is faith-based giving. We happen to be Christian, and so there are Christian faith-based organizations that we give to. Everything we give on the faith side has to have a physical, educational, or cultural impact, rather than political. Some examples would be helping bring water to parts of Africa, scholarships for students at universities, and mission trips through Baylor University. There are about a half dozen organizations that we focus on, and it took some research.

The other side is secular and more community-focused. For that, we’ve given to William & Mary, which is where I went to school, to the business school for scholarships. And then we also have supported the arts. We have a daughter who is in musical theater and lives in Manhattan and a son who graduated from film school. It is a field where a lot of people, they’re struggling. You think of celebrities when you think of entertainment. There are many more people who are writers and directors and actors that just don’t have a leg up. And so we provide scholarships to a couple of universities that help with that.

CA: What motivated you to choose these particular efforts?

DH: It’s definitely based on personal ties, and those ties are reflective of our outlook on life and our values. But from our perspective, we think that there are some things that are universal. Regardless of your value system or belief system, people need food and shelter. It also helps to have education. I really believe that in a modern society, no matter where you live, the more education you can get, the better off you’ll be.

From our perspective, we don’t just help a certain segment of the population or a certain belief system – we try to help everybody. We try to look for what’s universal amongst people and help there. Most physical needs are the same, whether it’s food and shelter or opportunity. Our giving is always based on providing, or helping to provide, those needs and then giving people an opportunity to have an awareness of others.

The money that we’ve given is helping people to have an awareness of others and an appreciation for other people, whether they believe them or not. If it leads to greater understanding and greater support for people’s needs, physical needs, then we’re happy about it. So that’s essentially what we’ve focused on. We try to have a cultural impact and we also try to have an educational impact, but we don’t think you can get to that level as easily as if you first provide for physical and financial type needs.

CA: To the extent that you’ve been able to see an impact in where you’ve donated, what made you smile the most?

DH: There were two things that really hit me. One was on a trip to Liberia supporting an organization that built water wells for the population. It’s hard to believe, but most people in Liberia do not have clean water. It’s absolutely shocking when you see it. People will have outhouses in the same pond where they’re drawing their water and they’re not cleaning it. And then people wonder why children are dying by the age of two or three. And so I went there with a friend of mine, Todd Phillips, who decided in 2010 that he was going to make sure every single person in Liberia had clean drinking water. And he succeeded in 2020 and used private money through public works projects. Going there, being with him, seeing them build a well, and then seeing the community break down and say, “I never have seen water this clean in my life. I never knew. This is an incredible blessing,” was indescribable. It’s shocking the things that we take for granted in the United States. That really affected me greatly.

The other organization that is really close to our hearts is Jill’s House in Vienna, VA. It provides completely free support to families that have children with special needs, including severe mental and physical disabilities. If you’re a parent or a couple with a child that’s in this situation, you are on call 24/7/365. You get no rest and there’s not enough support. Jill’s House will house your child to provide medical care and overnight respite. They have trained nurses, medical professionals, physical therapists, a safe environment, and all of it is taken care of.

CA: What impact do these organizations have on you?

DH: Those two causes have affected us the most, I think, because we see an impact on children. We really love children, who we see as just innocent bundles of joy that have incredible promise if they have the opportunity. We do a lot with children, whether it’s scholarships for students at Baylor University, Chapman University, William & Mary, or water in Liberia for children that otherwise would not make it, to kids with special needs. To us, children need the biggest helping hand.

CA: It’s interesting that you touched on two stories, one of which is in your backyard, essentially, and then another is halfway across the world. What’s it like to see that impact on a global scale?

DH: Yeah, it’s true. There is a lot going on here in the U.S. and obviously, there are many charities that focus on the U.S. And some focus internationally, but there’s needs everywhere. You do not have to go far. Needs are all around you. You don’t have to go to Liberia or the Dominican Republic. Just look around.

CA: What’s your perspective on the differences as you approach a nonprofit versus a corporation? And what similarities do you see?

DH: One similarity is that a company should always have goals and milestones and a vision for why it exists and is necessary. The same is true for a nonprofit or a charitable organization. My wife and I built Landon IP together, and we work together on the charitable side too. So as a difference, I think she would agree with me that it’s actually a lot easier to know what to invest in at a company and where to put money than it is at a charity. Because, at a business, you’re close to the action. You live it every day, and you kind of know what those needs are and where you’ll get the best result for any action that you take. With charity, unless it’s your own charity that you’ve created, you don’t quite know if you’re really meeting the need as appropriately as you could and if the funding is used for that intended purpose. It takes more research and effort beforehand.

We end up giving to a smaller subset of organizations where we have seen the impact up front as opposed to lots of them. It’s a similar approach to investing – you can either invest in a large basket and then just hope that it all works out, or you can put it in a few investments and then watch it play out.

Overall the similarities are the vision, the plan, the goals, the milestones. I do think that the differences are pretty stark. Nonprofits have to raise capital, but it’s all for the purpose of using it or giving it away, not to save it for some future time. They have a constant growing need and they are impacted by economic cycles.

CA: Where do you recommend people start before getting involved in philanthropic endeavors or community involvement?

DH: I would say, ask yourself, “Who am I and why am I here?” and “What motivates me in general?” Before you give any support to any charity, just say, “Is this who I am? And is this what I care about?” That’s important first and foremost.

Secondly, there are tools to help decide where to put your money. There’s a great app called Charity Navigator, which does side-by-side comparisons of nonprofit organizations and how much money actually goes towards their mission. And you can look at the different types of charities that way.

The next thing is, take the time to meet with the organizations. Actually meet with a development officer and go see what they do. That gives you sort of an emotional connection, and you’ll see so much more by observing than just by researching from afar.

I would recommend those three things and then budget yourself, quite honestly. For example, prior to closing our deal, my wife and I set aside a certain amount of money in a trust so that it could be distributed to charitable organizations in the future. We believe this was the best way to optimize our giving and have the greatest impact.

CO: What do you see in your future, both professionally and with your philanthropic involvements?

DH: For me, there are two reasons why I went back to work. One is because, as I said, I got bored of retirement. The second reason is to make more money so we have more money to give away. I just feel like I need a sense of purpose while I’m here on the Earth. So I do what I know, which is business. I love running a business, but it is also the means to hopefully generate another shot at giving. We have already completely exhausted the charitable trust we previously set up, but we do still give. But to have a bigger impact, it helps to go back to work, which I did, and now this time around, I’m not relying just on what we’ve built, but also on my other involvements in mentorship, investing, and philanthropy.

Dave Hunt is a former Clearsight Advisors client. The names and marks of other companies or their services or products may be the trademarks of their owners and are used only to identify such companies or their services or products and not to indicate endorsement, sponsorship, or ownership by Clearsight Advisors. The information, views, opinions, and positions expressed in this conversation are those of the individual who made the statement and do not necessarily reflect the policies, views, opinions, and positions of Clearsight Advisors.