NEW YORK - Employees of Alliance Capital Management LP are getting more than just a warm glow from their support of the High School for Arts & Business in Queens. The paintings and drawings of the students grace the walls of Alliance's New York headquarters for a whole year.
The students, their parents and teachers are invited to an opening reception that celebrates the year's new exhibit. Art students from the school's senior class each received a $500 certificate for Alliance mutual funds.
The high school was adopted by Alliance Capital after a request from one of its clients, the $48 billion New York City Teachers' Retirement System.
The system wanted more than money, however, from the Alliance Capital Foundation Fund, a charitable foundation established by the company's chief executive officer, Bruce Calvert, in 1999. Exposure to the working world and financial education for the students through visits to Alliance offices and by working with portfolio managers was seen as even more valuable to students of this high school in an economically disadvantaged area of New York.
The Alliance foundation's mission is to keep the money it donates in the communities served by the program, said Liz Smith, senior vice president and managing director of the public fund group. For example, rather than providing scholarship funds that college students take out of the community, Alliance foundation dollars fund a literacy program for high school-bound students at St. Ann's Church of Morrisania in the South Bronx and after-school tutoring for children of AIDS patients at Columbia New York Presbyterian Hospital in the Bronx.
Alliance also supports educational programs in Minneapolis and likely will look for more programs, said Ms. Smith.
