Financial advisors don’t just manage their clients’ investments – they also help to guide their clients in all aspects of their lives. In this series, we highlight financial advisors, wealth managers, and attorneys who themselves are passionate about charitable giving and provide expertise to assist their clients in taking their own charitable giving to the next level.
Recognized by Barron’s magazine as one of the top three women financial advisors nationwide, Stephanie Stiefel oversees approximately $1.45 billion for clients as a Managing Director of Neuberger Berman’s Straus Group. Ms. Stiefel currently serves on the Board of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at New York University and is a trustee of Queens College. Stephanie has also served as a board member of Central Synagogue and The Jewish Communal Fund. Here she talks with JCF about her active charitable involvement and how she chose to keep her late husband’s memory alive.
Jewish Communal Fund: What values drive your involvement in charitable giving?
Stephanie Stiefel: The values that inspire me are ones that my parents instilled in me. I come from a middle-class background and we needed to be careful about our spending. While we didn’t have much, my parents “stretched” every time they responded to our synagogue’s Yom Kippur appeal. The High Holiday appeal during my childhood was done the old-fashioned way, with aliyah-card calling at our Conservative synagogue. My mom would put up her hand and when we came home, my dad would say, “Rhoda, we can’t afford that…what did you do?” My mom always said that we would figure it out and, of course, they did. Giving to our synagogue and the local Jewish community was as important as putting food on the table and that was taught to us from an early age.
JCF: Can you share with us some of the charitable causes that are personally meaningful to you?
SS: For me, most of the causes that I feel passionately about are dedicated to helping Jewish causes and education. By contributing to my synagogue (Central Synagogue) or donating to my Jewish Federation, I can leverage my charitable giving. I’m a big believer in the power of Jewish Federation. It’s a very well-oiled machine and I get a lot of efficiency with my charitable giving. I see the good work Federation does locally, in Israel, and all over the world. Central Synagogue’s mission statement says it all. They “work tirelessly toward a world in which Judaism is central to the lives of Jews everywhere and is a profound and positive force for humanity.” Annual giving to Central Synagogue is among my most important contributions.
JCF: You have found charitable giving to be a meaningful way to honor the memory of loved ones. Can you tell us more about that?
SS: I do believe in giving back. I think it is our obligation as citizens of the world. When you are blessed with an education, you are part of your school’s community and should find a way to make it better for the generations that follow. You were given that privilege and it is incumbent on you to help others that follow you. That is why I set up a memorial trust at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in memory of my late husband, Eric A. Stiefel. Every year the university identifies leaders in fraternities who have accounting backgrounds and provides them with scholarship funds. In this way, my late husband’s memory is kept alive and it allows me to identify and support future leaders. The recipients are very appreciative and write the most heartwarming letters to me and my family. I’ve had the opportunity to meet some of them, and it is exciting to see that this gift has been inspirational for them as well.
I also created a beautiful memorial rose garden near the business school, where Eric spent a lot of time as an accounting major. It’s a place where students can hang out and reflect. It gives my family great joy to know that, in some way, Eric’s memory is preserved. Recently, I also installed a memorial garden at Queens College in honor of my paternal and maternal grandparents, Sol and Sarah Finkelstein and Louis and Dorothy Zinn. This special memorial garden allows my grandparents’ memories to be perpetuated too.
JCF: How do you approach conversations around charitable giving with your clients?
SS: It’s tricky. You can’t impose your own values on your clients. Because I’ve been doing this for many years, I know when I have my “opening.” I like to describe how simple it is to manage your philanthropy at the Jewish Communal Fund, especially when it comes to initiating a donor advised fund and recommending grants through the fund. One of the biggest challenges in my life is time management. I have felt very liberated by doing my charitable giving through JCF—it’s just so easy. Clients do not necessarily need to be tech-savvy to manage their charitable funds and I find many of my older clients love it as much as I do.
I think that charitable giving is very personal, and consequently I’m very respectful of the client’s charitable giving desires. I will not raise the subject unless I am asked. I wait until my relationship is strong enough to suggest a better way to use long-term capital gain assets to fund charitable giving.
JCF: Do you have a philosophy that guides your charitable giving? Is this something you share with your clients?
SS: I think we have an obligation to give back to the schools that have helped shape us. For me, education is a key priority and with so many budgetary limitations and constraints, schools can use all the support they can get. What better way to enhance society than to enrich and educate our children? Consequently, I have made education another important emphasis of my charitable giving. In addition to giving to my school and my son’s undergraduate and graduate schools, I have started to give money to the alma maters that my step children attended. It’s a way of establishing a giving record for them when it may be premature for them to do so on their own. Other charities that tug at my heart include Doctors Without Borders and Birthright Israel. I was blown away by how you can provide medical services to rural communities and “parachute in” doctors to solve large healthcare issues in remote areas. My son went on Birthright, and although trip participants don’t pay, the trip certainly costs money. A client of mine was making annual contributions to Birthright Israel and I thought it was a great idea… how great to support annual trips for kids to visit Israel in such an enriched way! I feel an annual obligation to improve the lives of others and I encourage my clients to do the same. Once I get on the subject of charitable giving, it’s something I’m not shy about!