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Young Wall Streeter’s mission: helping youth in Big Apple
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By Cynthia Dettelbach
Editor
“For those of you who don’t happen to be named Barack, change in the next four years might seem a spectator sport,” recently observed New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof. He then goes on to prove that change – particularly the act of helping others less fortunate – is hardly a mantra or a goal reserved exclusively for the president-elect.
To prove his point, Kristof describes the extraordinarily successful efforts of a 10-year-old Iowa girl to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
I’d submit as proof of the columnist’s premise the accomplishments of former Clevelander Eric Ritter, 28.
Ritter, who has worked at various jobs on Wall Street since graduating from Ohio State University in 2002, has co-founded Young Wall Street (YWS). It is a nonprofit organization aiming to improve the lives of New York City youth.
The idea for YWS, explains Ritter in a phone interview, came to him about three years ago Rosh Hashanah when he was at the Beachwood home of his parents, Nadia and (former CJN president) Michael Ritter. While attending services at Park Synagogue and throughout the holiday, he recalls, “I was doing a lot of reflecting.”
He was spending many long hours at his job doing equity and commodity trading and investment banking. Evenings he was usually busy socializing. Some of the time with friends, some with clients. In addition, he and other young, single Wall Streeters were invited to “tons of charity events where we’d each pay $100, show up, drink a lot, and leave.” Hardly satisfying, he admits, for someone “raised to give back to community.”
Back in New York, Ritter networked with other Wall Streeters who, like him, were in their mid- to upper-20s. Since many of them were not originally from New York (and New York was being good to them in those years!), they likewise wanted to contribute to their adopted community. Ritter felt they could do that both by raising funds for worthy organizations and by hands-on volunteering.
Making it sound easier than it probably was, Ritter put together a core group of Young Wall Streeters – people of all different backgrounds, religions, colleges and geographical points of origin. As a result, he explains, they had different social networks from which to draw.
Ritter has drawn from Beachwood friends living in the Big Apple. One of those friends is Adina Meyerson, a graphic artist who designed the invitation for his first fundraising event for the Madison Square Boys & Girls Club. (There have been two subsequent events for two other charities.)
“Eric’s a great people person,” says Meyerson. “My friends from Beachwood and Pepper Pike all support Eric’s events, and they (the fundraising events) get bigger each time.”
Casting his net still wider, Ritter notes that “the many people who introduced me to organizations (like AIPAC and New York’s Jewish Federation) I have introduced, in turn, to YWS.”
The idea behind Young Wall Street, explains Ritter, is to serve as an intermediary for charitable organizations. “We throw the charitable event for the organization and give them 100% of the profits.”
That’s shorthand for a far more intricate and time-consuming process. It begins with between five and 10 charities making a presentation to the YWS board. One charity is chosen, and the related event planned. The latter includes everything from venue selection, silent and live auctions, food and entertainment to the all-important delivery of (paying) guests.
A second, key component is the volunteer effort. For example, after raising $100,000 for the Boys & Girls Clubs, YWS members and friends have been connecting directly with the children. It’s a mitzvah Ritter happily shares even with his Bank of America clients.
Part of his job, he explains, is entertaining clients (average age: 33). “We’re supposed to go to bars and do fun activities with them.” So why not, he reasoned, also invite that client to join him in reading a book or playing chess or basketball with an underprivileged kid? In that way, “we all give back together.”
Not once, he maintains, has any of his clients turned down such a volunteering opportunity. Likewise, Bank of America and his previous employer, Bear Stearns, “were unbelievably supportive of my working on these activities,” since philanthropy is important to both organizations.
Yet another invaluable component of YWS, particularly in these unsettled and unsettling economic times, is the networking it provides members. “If someone loses a job or a firm goes under (both common occurrences these days), we blast a résumé via e-mail,” explains Ritter. The first day Bear Stearns imploded, for example (Ritter was a vice president there at the time), he contacted his YWS co-founder Peter Habert. Habert, who runs a venture capital firm, gave Ritter an available office from which he was able to conduct his recent job search.
On the evening of the day I spoke with Ritter, YWS was set to have its monthly board meeting to discuss its next project: holding résumé workshops and offering career counseling to young adults. These board meetings, he admits, provide welcome “consistency” in YWSers’ often upended working lives. “Most of us have moved around to different firms”… so having dinner and meeting together provides “stability,” he points out.
In working to effect change and improve the lives of those far less fortunate than they, Ritter and his Young Wall Street friends have also softened the blow to the unwelcome changes now affecting themselves.
cdettelbach@cjn.org
To prove his point, Kristof describes the extraordinarily successful efforts of a 10-year-old Iowa girl to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
I’d submit as proof of the columnist’s premise the accomplishments of former Clevelander Eric Ritter, 28.
Ritter, who has worked at various jobs on Wall Street since graduating from Ohio State University in 2002, has co-founded Young Wall Street (YWS). It is a nonprofit organization aiming to improve the lives of New York City youth.
The idea for YWS, explains Ritter in a phone interview, came to him about three years ago Rosh Hashanah when he was at the Beachwood home of his parents, Nadia and (former CJN president) Michael Ritter. While attending services at Park Synagogue and throughout the holiday, he recalls, “I was doing a lot of reflecting.”
He was spending many long hours at his job doing equity and commodity trading and investment banking. Evenings he was usually busy socializing. Some of the time with friends, some with clients. In addition, he and other young, single Wall Streeters were invited to “tons of charity events where we’d each pay $100, show up, drink a lot, and leave.” Hardly satisfying, he admits, for someone “raised to give back to community.”
Back in New York, Ritter networked with other Wall Streeters who, like him, were in their mid- to upper-20s. Since many of them were not originally from New York (and New York was being good to them in those years!), they likewise wanted to contribute to their adopted community. Ritter felt they could do that both by raising funds for worthy organizations and by hands-on volunteering.
Making it sound easier than it probably was, Ritter put together a core group of Young Wall Streeters – people of all different backgrounds, religions, colleges and geographical points of origin. As a result, he explains, they had different social networks from which to draw.
Ritter has drawn from Beachwood friends living in the Big Apple. One of those friends is Adina Meyerson, a graphic artist who designed the invitation for his first fundraising event for the Madison Square Boys & Girls Club. (There have been two subsequent events for two other charities.)
“Eric’s a great people person,” says Meyerson. “My friends from Beachwood and Pepper Pike all support Eric’s events, and they (the fundraising events) get bigger each time.”
Casting his net still wider, Ritter notes that “the many people who introduced me to organizations (like AIPAC and New York’s Jewish Federation) I have introduced, in turn, to YWS.”
The idea behind Young Wall Street, explains Ritter, is to serve as an intermediary for charitable organizations. “We throw the charitable event for the organization and give them 100% of the profits.”
That’s shorthand for a far more intricate and time-consuming process. It begins with between five and 10 charities making a presentation to the YWS board. One charity is chosen, and the related event planned. The latter includes everything from venue selection, silent and live auctions, food and entertainment to the all-important delivery of (paying) guests.
A second, key component is the volunteer effort. For example, after raising $100,000 for the Boys & Girls Clubs, YWS members and friends have been connecting directly with the children. It’s a mitzvah Ritter happily shares even with his Bank of America clients.
Part of his job, he explains, is entertaining clients (average age: 33). “We’re supposed to go to bars and do fun activities with them.” So why not, he reasoned, also invite that client to join him in reading a book or playing chess or basketball with an underprivileged kid? In that way, “we all give back together.”
Not once, he maintains, has any of his clients turned down such a volunteering opportunity. Likewise, Bank of America and his previous employer, Bear Stearns, “were unbelievably supportive of my working on these activities,” since philanthropy is important to both organizations.
Yet another invaluable component of YWS, particularly in these unsettled and unsettling economic times, is the networking it provides members. “If someone loses a job or a firm goes under (both common occurrences these days), we blast a résumé via e-mail,” explains Ritter. The first day Bear Stearns imploded, for example (Ritter was a vice president there at the time), he contacted his YWS co-founder Peter Habert. Habert, who runs a venture capital firm, gave Ritter an available office from which he was able to conduct his recent job search.
On the evening of the day I spoke with Ritter, YWS was set to have its monthly board meeting to discuss its next project: holding résumé workshops and offering career counseling to young adults. These board meetings, he admits, provide welcome “consistency” in YWSers’ often upended working lives. “Most of us have moved around to different firms”… so having dinner and meeting together provides “stability,” he points out.
In working to effect change and improve the lives of those far less fortunate than they, Ritter and his Young Wall Street friends have also softened the blow to the unwelcome changes now affecting themselves.
cdettelbach@cjn.org
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