Home Giving Back
Giving back to the city this practice grew up in.
Once a year I clear the calendar, and Cowell & Co. joins the Charity Golf Classic. It is the least spreadsheet-driven day on the calendar, and one of the most worthwhile.
Community
I spend my year on other people's money. One day of it goes somewhere else.
The Charity Golf Classic is a North Texas tournament that funds financial-literacy programs in local high schools. Cowell & Co. has fielded a team in it every year since 2018.
I will be straight about why this one matters to me. I have built a career helping people who already have money keep more of it. That work is worth doing, and I am good at it. What it never reaches is the high-school senior who graduates without knowing how a paycheck is taxed, what a credit score measures, or why a Roth account exists.
The Classic funds the programs that do reach them. Every dollar the field raises goes to classroom financial-literacy curriculum for students across Dallas, Collin, and Tarrant counties. A handful of us, myself included, teach a few of those sessions during the school year.
Our team is not going to win the tournament. We made peace with that years ago. We show up, we play badly with real enthusiasm, and we write a real check. That is the entire strategy.
Impact
What a day of bad golf adds up to.
None of this is about the firm. It is about a count of classrooms that grows a little every October. Here is where eight years of tee times have landed.
On the course
How the day actually goes.
We tee off early, before the Texas heat turns the back nine into a character test. The format is a scramble, which is the format invented so that people who are bad at golf can still enjoy it. I am living proof that it works.
Between holes there is a long table of barbecue, a silent auction nobody can resist, and a steady stream of people who care about the same thing for an afternoon. The golf is the excuse. The check at the end is the point. By late afternoon the carts head back in, the scores get tallied, and the organizers announce a number that is always bigger than the year before.
Get involved
There is room in the field next October.
Cowell & Co. sponsors a hole and fields a team every year. If your business would like a team slot, or simply an introduction to the Classic organizers, send me a note and I will make it happen.