i worked at lehman brothers for one point five years. i was 20, 22 when i was there. it was my responsibility. starts off getting coffee in the keeping track of spreadsheets, but they were very good at giving responsibility quickly to young people, so you are thrown in the fire pretty quickly and working to build models and track performance business. and very quickly, given your own book and responsibility where you are responsible for investment and trading decisions.

i went to california for the weekend to go to the rose bowl and never men -- and i member landing back and went to my bloomberg account and it was just all capital in red with breaking with lehman brothers files for bankruptcy. one after the next and next. it is like, oh, my god, how did this happen? full ofing floor was people taken step out of their desks and putting them into boxes and people were smoking cigarettes and drinking liquor and there were pizza boxes everywhere. it was quite a scene. the fourth forn the lehman brothers and to watch everything collapse when it was through no action of myself or anyone on my floor, really , but itn my building collapsed and was eye-opening for me.

when i was there, was i happy? i was happy at times, but i would not have been happy making the career working at lehman brothers. i was frustrated to be investing in businesses without being able to help in fact, so we would own $10 million of the bank debt of had no motors and they impact in the future of general motors. and much more. but what was happening with the , but beingness frustrated by the lack of impact and change it could have on investments is what started me havethis path where we do a changeable impact and ability to help affect change our portfolio companies. it was about regaining control of my own destiny. whether i am successful or not, at least i will not control over

that future success or failure. i was ok with that. >> i am david hughes. president and ceo of rugby architectural building products. we are a nationwide distributor of specialty building materials and we operate 20th locations across the united states. -- operate 28 locations across the united states. we have got u.s. distribution. our relationship with coopersmith and leading bridge capital started in august, 2011, when they invested in rugby. the growth capital provided by anding bridge partners, affiliated investors, we have grown the business to approximately 300 million sales from 76 point dollar and sales.

having partners like reading rich and -- leading bridge and chemistry andgood relationships. we have been able to grow faster and handle more opportunities as the result of a partnership with them. >> how are you doing? what we do is help solve problems for small businesses and we have been able to provide a solution for a number of family businesses, small businesses that have meant the employees keep their jobs and the customers keep their supplier and the suppliers keep the distributor. and successfully grow the business is and continue to provide more opportunities for their employees. zach is wise beyond his years. he is not that much older than my kids, so i think about how young he is. he is obviously a bright guy and he provides good perspective

because the challenges business decisions, asking questions. theyat i love about what do, you get to know the people you are dealing with and make spreadsheet, a business. it becomes about their family, their wife, kids, aspirations, goals for life after business. >> there is cleanup to be done here. >> as far as of the time is right to help others, we wait until the time might a perfect or wait until it you are 100% comfortable, it is too late. when you have the opportunity to write a check or have the opportunity to volunteer, take advantage and there's never a perfect time.

>> my name is born coopersmith and i am -- my name is warren cooper smith and i am zach's dad. and there were some failure and successes. we grew up with summers and weekends in the family business and always talking about this. >> everything i know in business

i learned from watching my dad, whether it is waking up at 4:00 in the morning and loading trucks for 25 years, he has been through a lot. all kinds of sacrifices, but he was always at my baseball and soccer game and was able to find that balance. i think i try to emulate that, where work is important. is all for that. business early ventures were numerous. he started selling rocks that you would take out of a person's guardian and try to sell it back to them at age two or three. he had some success but no and then moved on to

selling paper products. he would put samples together. it grew a little bit and he had an assistant in the neighborhood and he would package it together and run around the neighborhood. he did all right. do you want to talk about the first llc formed? thousand company i started along with a friend's my sophomore year of high school. itwere 15 when we started and borrow the money from our parents, we formed a business. six weeks then, we had no business and we sat down and said, this is not working so we opened up the yellow pages and made phone calls and we booked 14 jobs, which was 1.5 or two months of work in a six-hour period. yesterday.it like james was my partner and we were just going crazy.

we went to college and we were able to sell the business for more than we had invested into it at the end. scale, and wasst starting a business from scratch and ended up selling the three years later for profit. as far as early influences of philanthropy in my life, it would be my parents. are an early age, when you blessed in a way to help others, it is your duty to help others. whether it is in a small way, big weight or somewhat in between, it is critical to do so. the first memory i have of philanthropy is a small county fair in virginia where we sold popcorn and cotton candy to raise money for a group of special needs children in the area. we woke up at 4:30 in the morning, went to the fairgrounds, set up shop, sold cotton candy and popcorn at a

dollar apiece, and we raised a lot of money, to me at the time, to donate the money. we did it for a number of years. from the ages of 4, 5, or 6, early on, though, small dollars may be in the scheme of global philanthropy, the lessons learned, the values on philanthropy and the importance of philanthropy were certainly instilled in an early age. warren: you either within you have the instinct and the desire to give and share, or you do not. i think there should be a desire within that if your lifestyle changes and you are able to, and then you want to give back. zach: really no different than when we go look for a business, i was looking for a charity to partner with and attach myself to, and make a wish was a very well known organization, a very fiscally responsible

organization where a lot of the dollars donated go toward granting wishes, and most importantly, i love the mission, what they did, why they existed. the impact they had on families and on children. ♪ pat: i am pat clemency, i am president and ceo of make-a-wish in new york. the mission of make-a-wish is to grant wishes for children with life-threatening medical conditions, to enrich the human experience with hope and joy. we understand the importance today of the wish experience. it is part of patient care. we also understand its impact,

not just in that moment, but over the lifetime of a child, of a family, of everyone in the community who has been touched by that wish. zach: you become a much better fundraiser and much better philanthropist the much more personally involved with the mission and impacting children and their families. ♪ zach: toast to wishes started six years ago. i was sitting around with a few friends and just saying hey, we go out in the city and we have fun, wouldn't it be nice to go and try to have fun but do some good while being together? we felt like there was a void in the market, so to speak, of really fun charity events that supported great causes. just like a business finds a void in the market and fills it, that is kind of what we did here by starting toast to wishes. we created a fun event that people love to come to, supporting a charity that people

love to support. we minimize the cost and we maximize the chance of success. we set it up with a venue that was going to close otherwise, so there was no opportunity cost for them to be open to all the liquor and food was donated. all the music was donated. all the auction items were donated. so the only cost was having the staff there that night. how badly could it go? what was make-a-wish's reaction when i first approached them with this event? biggest the reaction was been there, done that, not going to work. you need to be persistent. if you believe in something strong enough, you continue to push until you get what you want. for me, it was worth trying to help make-a-wish, worth trying to help kids, worth trying to grant wishes. do not stop me from doing that. we are going to be successful. we are going to raise a lot of money. let us go raise the money. ♪

narrator: investor zach coopersmith was on the board of the make-a-wish foundation when he spotted a gap in the new york philanthropy scene. the result is an annual party, attended by some of the youngest and richest leading lives. zach: first of all, welcome, thank you so much for coming. we set out with a goal of $10,000, and hopefully have 150 people show up, and the first year we raised $45,000 and sold the venue out with 220 people. we were beyond excited. it was a cool spot, open bar, packed food, small auction, and everybody had a great time. it snowballed into a really neat, annual event. we are now in our sixth year. we have raised $1.5 million. we have 600, 700 people every year.

we continue to sell out. we are looking for a bigger venue that is still a lot of fun. people come back because they love make-a-wish, they love making a difference, and they love having fun while doing it. that is what it does is it gives people an avenue through which to donate money to a great cause, and for that, they are appreciative. and by the way, they get to have a whole lot of fun while making that difference. and the average wish costs, it moves around a little bit, but it is about $8,000 or so. you take the $1.6 million, $1.7 million that we have raised, that is a lot of wishes. pat: that very first year when zach and his friends raised $40,000, that in itself was pretty remarkable for a first-time event. the second year when it raised $175,000, i think everyone really sat up and took notice. but i think what was so remarkable about it is that already you could see important this event was, not only for

raising money but for building the next generation of leadership for make-a-wish. and really crating a long-term commitment for the cause. zach: i have been involved with a number of wishes. one that came to mind that really was a life-changing experience, and i do not say that lightly, was a child from salt lake city. his name was jacob. becky: my name is becky shelton. my son is jacob shelton, and he is a make-a-wish child. and that's how we know zach. ♪ becky: we lived in a rural area of town, so doctors appointments were 2.5 hours either way. so, i got very good at getting the kids breakfast, putting them on the bus, putting jake and i in the car, driving to the

doctor's office, getting back. getting the kids off the bus. that was our daily routine. zach: jacob was battling illnesses has whole life, and his wish was to go to "sesame street" to meet elmo, and he came from salt lake city with his mom and his mom's friend to meet elmo, and the make-a-wish teamed me up with the family, with becky and jacob and her family to go to sesame street. becky: when jacob saw elmo, it was like his blankie, his soft thing, his place to go, so whenever he was sick, whenever we had to have a procedure done in the hospital, our go to thing was an elmo video. that would take his mind off what was going on for a little while. elmo was his happy place. elmo was where he felt safe and he felt good. zach: he got in the limousine, put the wheelchair in the back, got him in the limousine, he --

becky actually pulled off his shirt and stuck a feeding tube right in his stomach. it was something i had not seen before, something i had not been exposed to, and wow, things just got really real, really fast. it was really a special time. it was not go meet elmo, shake his hand, and call it a day. we were on set for six hours. jacob got to meet the camera man. he got to do everything on set. he got to go backstage. he got to meet the puppets. he was interacting with the muppets like they were people. >> you are in my heart forever now, jacob. right here, feel my heart. becky: his face was as bright and his smile was as big as i had ever seen, and those eyes could light up the world. he just loved it. he was jacob -- not a care in world.

he was jacob right there with his buddy. zach: you realize what they have been through as a family, and it makes you realize the trivial issues that we deal with on the trading floor at barclays, goldman, or i deal with with our companies day to day. just those trivial issues, but they are not meaningless, but look at what this family is dealing with, what they are seeking to overcome, and you look at those hurdles, and it makes your hurdles easier to jump over. becky: there are moments that now that jacob has passed away i have. and those memories will always be with me. for that, i will forever be grateful. ♪ zach: putting on an event is

very similar to planning a business. we talk about leadership. how do we start an event and end up six years later with an event that looks like we have today? it's about leadership. it's having a group of people who are passionate about what they do, passion about the cause, the vision, the mission, and rally people around them, and that is what we have done. it's no different than as ceo of one of our businesses or what we try to instill in the management of our businesses. it's the same thing here. let's get a group of people, get them excited, get more people around us, get them excited, and continue to grow. that is what we have done with the event, that is what we have done with the new leadership council, and it's really similar to what our successful businesses have done within their companies as well. pat: i think the new breed of philanthropists is really asking questions about not only wanting to participate and give time or give money, but really looking at the opportunity to see the results of their work.

so, if anything, i think they are bringing a sensibility about understanding the impact of where they make their donation of time and money. zach: my personal approach of philanthropy is really to generate as many smiles as you can for the dollars to which you are donating and raising. and i did not want to wait until later in life to be able to make a difference. at the end of the day, we are here for the mission of make-a-wish, what make-a-wish does, the impact it has on children with life-threatening illnesses. if neighborhood by neighborhood, area by area, i think our generation really is making a bigger difference than maybe past generations have at this age, and we will continue to make even a bigger impact. ♪

narrator: our world today is wealthier than ever. but not everyone shares in this wealth. today's young business leaders are challenging this. changing the way we think about money -- its power and its purpose. this is a new generation. this is the new philanthropy. ♪ alexandre mars knows what it