PND (4/11/2000) -- Tech Investor Offers Capital In Return for Pledge to Nonprofits

Avram Miller, a former vice president of corporate business development at chipmaker Intel Corp., has taken an unorthodox approach to his fundraising for charity, the San Jose Mercury News reports.

Recalling how much he hated having to raise funds as chairman of an East Palo Alto community center, Miller has come up with a new way to attract money for charity. He invests his own money in start-up companies and invites other wealthy individuals into the deals, but on one condition: the investors must agree to donate a percentage of their profits to nonprofit organizations.

Miller used his investing-for-charity approach last winter to secure a portion of the $12 million first-round financing for New York-based Oncology.com, a cancer Web site he is helping develop with Michael Milken. The two are using the same approach for a nutrition-oriented Web company that has raised $7.5 million to date. Miller estimates that almost three-quarters of the profits generated by the latter are committed to nonprofits in the medical research field, and both he and Milken are donating 100 percent of their own profits from the two companies to charity.

Neidorf, Shawn. "Ex-Intel Executive: Let's Make a Deal to Donate." San Jose Mercury News 4/5/2000.

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