Fran Blum: Investing in New College of Florida

By Sylvia Whitman | Photo by Nancy Guth

Fran Blum knows a thing or two about where to put her resources. A retired Wall Street executive who had a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, Chicago Board Options Exchange, and the Pacific Exchange, Blum is now leveraging her financial acumen on behalf of the New College Foundation and serves on the foundation board. She’s leading the committee rejuvenating the Four Winds Legacy Society, donors who have placed New College in their estate plans. She also teaches financial literacy classes for students. What makes it “so compelling to be involved” at New College, Blum says, is the invitation for board members “to bring their intellectual capital to the table, not just their money.”

Blum describes her young self as “an entrepreneur in my own way.” She earned a master’s degree in counseling from Kean University. At the same time, Great Gorge in northern New Jersey was developing as a ski area. Recharging in a lodge after her morning runs, she noticed there was nothing to read except a two-week-old issue of the New York Times and a few magazines. Other places she’d skied had local tourist newspapers—so Blum, in her 20s, started one. 

The first issue, published in a Quonset hut “when they weren’t doing the Grand Union circulars,” sold out. Blum featured “no ugly news of the world, only fun and ski news.” Local resorts loved this freebie funded by ads—and demanded 50,000 copies of the second issue for a ski show at the New York Coliseum. “All of a sudden I had a good business,” Blum said. 

She sold that venture and launched a similar real estate publication in New York City, soon branching into investing in commercial and residential real estate. “At a certain point, I decided that I just wanted to get to Wall Street,” she says. She became an expert in exchanges around the world and was invited to join the firm of Caldwell Financial, which had strategic partnerships with stock and option exchanges in 27 countries.

Although Blum wasn’t the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, she recalls with a laugh getting lost on the way to the ladies’ room on her first day—only to be told that she had to walk through the “phone booth” to enter it.

When Blum retired about a decade ago, she weighed how best to use her assets. She co-authored a book, Think Rich! Get Rich! Stay Rich!, to empower women financially. “That’s one of my causes,” Blum says. “I see so many bright, professional women who are making money and have good careers, and yet they haven’t started to invest. Either that or they’re outsourcing it, which I’m very much against. They give it to their significant other, their uncle, or their father. 

“I really want to see women become as independent as I have been,” Blum continues. “I’ve had my own success, and I haven’t been dependent on anyone else.”

A longtime sojourner on Longboat Key, Blum is also committed to local and national nonprofits. You’ll find her name on rooms at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, for instance, and on donor rosters for Planned Parenthood, other women’s health initiatives, and arts and cultural organizations. While on the regional board of the American Jewish Committee (after two terms on the National Board of Governors), she crossed paths with Sue Jacobson, who “kind of lassoed” her over to New College Foundation. “Which I’m very happy about,” says Blum. “I love working with Sue. She opened the doors here.”

The admiration is mutual. Jacobson now chairs the New College Foundation board, on which Blum serves. “Fran has so much energy and enthusiasm,” says Jacobson. “She is ‘all in’—donates generously, attends meetings religiously, contributes to meetings and committees.” Jacobson ticks off Blum’s intangible contributions, from the financial literacy classes to dinner parties introducing locals to the college next door. “Whatever Fran makes a commitment to, she’s fully present,” says Jacobson. 

“She thinks I lassoed her? I’ll take responsibility for it,” adds Jacobson. “I’m proud of it.”

 New College’s undergraduates have also drawn in Blum. She credits the foundation’s staff with fostering personal connections. “You’re going to a luncheon, and there’s always a student telling their compelling story.  Some students really struggle to stay here.” She points out that 96% of undergrads receive financial aid. “If I can make it easier for them, I’m there,” she says.

She started with an anonymous donation to a young woman juggling part-time jobs just to stay in school. “Education levels the playing field,” says Blum. “That’s the reason why my philanthropy is going more in that direction. I’m giving more and more to scholarships.” 

She’s also thinking bigger with the New College Four Winds Legacy Society, encouraging donors to include New College in their estate plans as “an investment in leaders of tomorrow.” Blum lobbied for the new name, to emphasize the long-range vision of donors, large and small, alums or not. “New College is like the uncola cola. We’re different! We want to appeal to a wide range of people. …People think you have to be a major donor, give buildings or a dorm. No.” She’s organizing a January appreciation luncheon as a first step toward fostering more of a Legacy Society community. She’s also working with foundation staff to emphasize easy ways to give—directly from an IRA, for instance, with no detours in tax land.

And Blum continues to promote financial literacy on campus. Her first talk covered such basics as credit cards, debt management, “and an introduction to investing.” She recalls, “The first time I did this, students came up to me—they happened to be seniors—and they said to me, ‘We should have had this four years ago.’” Currently, in addition to her financial literacy programs, she’s organizing “real-life” experiences, such as a field trip to an investment office and an introduction to a financial services Bloomberg terminal (a dozen of which are available to students through the local Cross College Alliance). 

In Sarasota and elsewhere, too many organizations “really just want you for your check,” Blum says. “Yes, I do write checks. But what I particularly like about the New College Foundation is you’re invited to participate. I just feel so much a part of everything here.”

FOR MORE INFORMATIONabout New College Foundation visit www.ncf.edu.