About

Trevor Neilson, the man who advises the stars in their good causes. But who benefits the most for their assistance: charities or celebrities

On a recent afternoon in Santa Monica, Trevor Neilson met with his team at the Global Philanthropy Group, a company that directs the philanthropic activities of the very rich. Since the beginning of the company in 2007, Neilson was a surprisingly rapid rise as an advisor to celebrities, who constitute about half of its staff, its clients have included Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore Ben Stiller, Shakira, and Madonna. At the meeting, went in search of strategies for using the fame of its customers to raise money. A tall man, 40, Neilson was wearing jeans, a shirt and Converse. Offices, a few blocks from the beach, had the atmosphere of the advertising agency of fashion.

Neilson opened the meeting by saying: "I have no idea is a bad idea," but it was not until the latest version, a large, 24 year old woman blond named Molly Swenson, who had excited. GPG image combines entertainment and political quirks and Swenson is a graduate of Harvard University, a former intern of the Obama administration, and a competitor in the past

American Idol

. (She sang "(Sittin 'On) The Dock of the Bay", before being cut in a lap later.) His idea was to build applications that offer philanthropic-style iPhone push notifications. She explained: "A celebrity is encouraging fans to download the application to an organization if you drive along a particularly philanthropic organization, you get a warning message.".

"I love this!" Neilson cried. "Has anyone done this?"

"No," said Swenson. "You just push a button and donate a dollar."

"It's crazy!" Neilson said. "We struggled with ... if you're at a concert, how to attract the public philanthropic? Put something on the screen and ask them" to give the text does not work. "He paused and said with respect. "Well, Bono has done successfully, but it creates a totally different thing, we must build the implementation of the Global Philanthropy Group».

Everyone agreed - with the exception of Maggie, the wife of Neilson and business partner. In addition to managing business relationships of the company, temperaments Maggie enthusiasms of her husband, and his ego. "Nobody will download the application of Global Philanthropy," said Maggie out. "You download applications from our customers."

"Well, well," Neilson agreed, but then excited again. "Give a mobile application," he reflects. "One of the main reasons we started this company was to make it easier for people to get involved in philanthropy. That's all! "

The use of celebrities to raise money for causes is not new. Shirley Temple enhance connectivity of war and Audrey Hepburn traveled to Africa to get donations to Unicef. But the rise of celebrity philanthropy has generated some skepticism. Last December, Kim Kardashian, visited Haiti shortly after the end of a 10-week marriage to basketball player Kris Humphries.

"Nobody believes that Kardashian went to Haiti for humanitarian reasons, because we think of her as an opportunist and a dealer in the media," Terry Press, a consultant who was formerly the Hollywood DreamWorks marketing manager, he said. According to press reports, visit Kardashian joined a time-honored public relations strategy in which a star recommends that drivers show their philanthropic side. "It could be as simple as you need to start doing things that may make you sacrifice and compassion," says the press. "And you can dress more like a prostitute."

Neilson argues that the use of celebrities-grabbing title is the only way for nonprofit groups to draw attention to prestigious places such as Haiti, Darfur and Somalia. "When it comes to engaging the public on complex issues, celebrities are powerful - like it or not," said Neilson. "When you look at the number of new people consumed entertainment oriented foreign policy carried over, you realize that if you can use the celebrity to pay attention to the famine in Somalia, then they will pay attention. And if you do not, they are not. "

Competitors Neilson to praise the speed with which it has built its client list. Also described as a "star fucker," and an "egocentric", all that comes as a surprise to Neilson, who looks like a regular guy, unpretentious. "I am from Olympia, Washington, for the love of God ! " is his mantra, and said, without apparent irony, "I must do what we can to correct some of the things wrong with the world." Father

Neilson, Scott, was a juvenile judge of the court, and his mother, Janice, was a schoolteacher. But Janice in 1970, inspired by the television coverage of orphans left by the airline in Vietnam, helping to create an NGO to adopt children from Asia. Lobbying governments for permission to operate in China and India, she helped build the agency into one of the largest U.S. foreign adoption and the welfare of children. When Neilson was eight, her parents began to adopt orphans from Korea, two girls and two boys there. "Of the five, I'm the only white boy," he said. "I think my worldview has helped shape."

Neilson attended Washington State University and in 1993, won an internship with the Clinton White House, where he showed an instinct to approach the most famous man in the room. "They said, 'What office do you want to be placed in?" Neilson said. "Someone told me to be on the team in advance means that in reality would be around the president, and he would come to make things interesting." Neilson has learned that one of Clinton's first summit will be held at Blake Island, off the coast of Seattle. "I went into my boss's office and said," I'm from Seattle, I know every street in the city - perhaps slightly exaggerated went from being a practitioner of the advance team. ". A few months later, Neilson began working in the office of the White House race.

In early 1999, he received a call from a recruiter looking for a communications director of a new non-profit organization, whose mandate is to provide Internet access for schools and libraries. The organization, the Gates Foundation, learning, fled the office above a pizzeria in Redmond, Washington.

began shortly after Neilson, Bill Gates donates $ 5 billion of shares of Microsoft, and Neilson was found for the Bill & Melinda Gates, the richest company in the philanthropic United States. "There is no way I could have learned more and faster, on philanthropy."

In early 2001, Neilson was contacted by Bobby Shriver, a lawyer and a member of the Kennedy family. Shriver had worked for years with Bono on the debt of poor countries, and both were trying to raise $ 3 million for its data base (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa). Neilson, has long been a U2 fan, was eager to donate. But the idea, he says, "got stuck" because their heads were sober and skeptical. Without telling his superiors, Neilson held a meeting between Gates and Bono at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York in 2002. Soon thereafter, the Gates Foundation made its first contribution to the data, and since then has given tens of millions of dollars for campaigns Bono. singer, in an email, Neilson said, "helped data the ground, "adding:" To watch it, "Street Fighter" the word does not come to mind, but in reality it is a difficult question. "

Some, however, I think Neilson took too much credit for the campaign data. Shriver said: "Trevor terms of its original role is exuberant." But he added, "the good news about Trevor is that, because it's a little crazy and fickle, shit happens that could not have happened otherwise. "

In 2002, Neilson left the Gates Foundation, concerned, he says, to "run something". It was inspired by how Bono had used her fame to get audiences with leaders like George Bush and Tony Blair. "He gave me the idea for the Global Philanthropy Group," said Neilson. "With regard to the way he took his fame and fan base and used it to draw attention to issues that, frankly, nobody cared."

Neilson was not famous, so he had to hire people who were, and its largest customer was the beginning of Angelina Jolie. Neilson Jolie met in 2005 while working as executive director of the Global Business Coalition on HIV / AIDS. Neilson said Jolie befriended in a bar in the World Economic Forum in Davos (a current account that disputes philanthropic advisors). In any event, invited the actor to face a Congressional panel on AIDS, and she agreed. A year later, Neilson left the coalition to become a partner in the Endeavor Group, a consulting firm that deals with issues of "high net worth" individuals. Jolie brought their marquee customer.

Jolie won an Oscar in 1999, but had also drawn attention for his erratic behavior off the screen. He married one of the first co-star Jonny Lee Miller, while wearing a shirt with his name written in his blood, made with his brother at the Oscars, and after divorce Miller married briefly to actor Billy Bob Thornton, who told a television reporter at the MTV Music Awards, while Jolie nodded sheepishly, that the couple had "taken the car on the way here." However, in 2000, while Jolie was filmed

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

, she began to repair his public image. Some parts of the movie were filmed in Cambodia, and the suggestion of Michelle Kydd Lee, who heads the Creative Artists Agency, home of philanthropic consulting, Jolie visited a refugee camp. The following year she was appointed Goodwill Ambassador by the United Nations. According to press reports, Jolie has become a model of how philanthropy can remake the image of a star. "If a celebrity is going to do, he or she has to do with all my heart a thing can be said about Angelina Jolie is that she is consistent about his attention to his charity. Are beings who come and use it as a priest, then move on. This is what makes people more cynical about it. "

But in 2004, during the filming of

Mr & Mrs Smith

she met Brad Pitt, and shortly after, the wife of Pitt Jennifer Aniston filed for divorce. As his image as a breaker met at home, Neilson encouraged philanthropic activities of the new couple.

In December 2006, Jolie posed for pictures with his adopted son Cambodian Maddox, and photos of auction Neilson to celebrity magazines, with conditions. "While Angelina and Brad understand the interest of his family," he wrote in a letter to the editor "to expect that the publications who purchase these photos will use them in a way that also draws attention to the needs of the Cambodian population. "Time Inc. has paid $ 750,000 for photographs and, although the company refused to submit to editorial restrictions, January 8, 2007 people

produced a report entitled "Angelina Jolie: Mission to Cambodia". Other pieces followed by praise, the one in America Esquire

who asked , "Why not just go ahead and make the argument that it is the women the best worlds in terms of their generosity, dedication and courage? "Neilson was quick to sign celebrity clients at a breakneck pace." One after another, "he said." Boom, boom, boom. "

Neilson left Endeavor in August 2007 after a dispute with its founder, Adam Waldman. He and Maggie started GPG, with Ann Kelly, who led a technology company in Seattle. Neilson Jolie with him to the new company - with Pitt, soon to be launched Make It Right, a foundation for rebuilding the Ninth Ward of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

Despite this success, Jolie and Pitt soon left and returned to GPG Waldman. The New York Times

said Jolie was furious with references in Neilson press that his "publicist", and repeatedly cited in his name on aid humanitarian help.

Neilson argues that everyone has the philanthropic impulses, even those who do not know until they become customers. One of the functions of his office is to help celebrities to find out where the charities of their passions. To determine the interests of a star, GPG uses an exercise called "100 Questions." Neilson said: "We ask things like," What fills you with rage when you see the news? "Qu ' Is it arouses empathy? "

said Ken Berger, president and CEO of the monitoring group Charity Navigator, the participation of celebrities is a "mixed bag" for nonprofit organizations. Stars raise awareness, but with a greater visibility comes the endemic problems of fame, scandal, PR-mongering, vacillating commitment and what Berger calls the "forgotten factor". "If the celebrity enters a kind of personal problem and your organization is closely associated with the celebrity, you can have a real impact negatively on their work," he said.

"We all had the experience of working with celebrities who expect to be treated like royalty," the director of a nonprofit organization said. "People expect receive free drinks, get angry if you do not have all accumulated in and leave with parting gifts. "

Neilson, however, his feet touched the risks. "When you deal with a high-profile people of any kind will not always be a chance that things happen that either increase or decrease its influence in the world of philanthropy," he said. "So for me it's just part of working with human beings."

it against Bryant.

my friend, Bryant stood in front of a mural by graffiti and intimidating tone of a coach to give a talk in the locker room, spoke to two dozen reporters: "We will attack this because, for our young people to be there, lost in the street, feeling like no one else can support or help or advise them to follow or pursue their dreams, is weak. "

Bryant told reporters: "This is just the beginning We want to reach as many children as possible.". But when Neilson returned home in October, Bryant did not come. "He and Vanessa are on vacation somewhere exotic," said Neilson. (In December, she filed for divorce.) Heather Carmichael, executive director of the center, members of the board and Neilson was sitting in front of a group of homeless youth.

"We are a group that works with Kobe Bryant, the basketball player, for his philanthropic work," said Neilson. "He did a lot of money and fans, and he hopes it can use to make LA a better place. Tell me what you want on the site, or my friend is what you do not like. "

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