The collapse of Bernard Madoff’s self-described $50 billion Ponzi scheme has had a disastrous effect on many nonprofit groups.
But Fortune Magazine reports that one charity with Madoff connections has managed to emerge unscathed.
Luckily for itself, the Lymphoma Research Foundation received significant contributions from Madoff, more than a reported $1 million last year.
But the foundation didn’t return the favor by making Madoff’s company, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, its investment manager.
“We never were invested in anything at Madoff Securities - never,” Suzanne Bliss, the president of the foundation, told Fortune.
This sets the lymphoma foundation apart from several other charitable organizations.
On Friday, the Florida-based Picower Foundation closed. Madoff had managed its $1 billion in assets.
“(Madoff’s) act of fraud has had a devastating impact on tens of thousands of lives as well as numerous philanthropic foundations and nonprofit organizations,” said Barbara Picower, the founder of the foundation with her husband, Jeffry M. Picower.
Earlier, the Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation and the Chais Family Foundation had shut down, their assets wiped out in Madoff-related loses.
In addition, Yeshiva University has reportedly lost $110 million invested with Madoff by J. Ezra Merkin, a university trustee until his resignation this month.
Madoff was also a trustee of Yeshiva, serving as the board’s treasurer.
In contrast to these compromised connections to not-for-profit institutions, the Madoff link with the lymphoma foundation seems to have remained unscathed, perhaps because of the family’s personal relationship with the disease.
Their son Andrew was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2003. He now serves as the chairman and CEO of the foundation and has been a leading fund-raiser for the group.
Andrew Madoff and his brother, Mark, are the co-heads of trading at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. Neither man, nor any one other than their father had been charged with a crime.
Andrew and Mark lost their cousin Roger Madoff to cancer in 2006.
A former Bloomberg News reporter, Roger Madoff went on to work at Bernard Madoff Investment Securities. He was also the author of Leukemia for Chickens, an account of his illness and treatment.
Roger Madoff’s father, Peter B. Madoff, Bernard Madoff’s brother, is the senior managing director of Bernard Madoff Investment Securities. His sister, Shana Madoff, is the firm’s in-house counsel.
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