Why We Give: Noel Landuyt and Gary Schumann

Noel Landuyt & Gary Schumann

Noel Landuyt & Gary Schumann are a married gay couple who have leveraged their professional and social circles to promote a number of projects within the Austin community. Particularly relating to LGBTQ legal and health issues, causes they are both passionate about. As they like to say, “Give together and you stay together.”

Noel, a research institute director and professor at UT, and Gary, an attorney, have dedicated their careers and spare time to giving back thorough board service, volunteerism, advocacy, and hosting fundraising events. Together, the pair have developed quite the local reputation for living a life of generosity. 

We had the pleasure of sitting down with Noel and Gary to hear why they give in honor of Pride Month. 

Q: We talk a lot about the 5 T’s of Giving - Time, Talent, Treasure, Ties, and Testimony. You give back in so many tremendous ways. Of the five T's, what are your favorite ways to give back? 

N: I  think you’ve got to do all five, right? For example, Gary is great at the Testimony because he does a lot more promotion on social media. Whereas I have sat on a lot of nonprofit boards, and I always end up on development. I always end up fundraising. And that’s where I can really give my Talent.

But when you give with all five of those T's really, you can balance out what you’re capable of. If you have the ability to give more Treasure, donate more. If you have the ability to give more Time, you can spend your time giving back. If you're good at Testimony or Ties, those are also ways to make an impact alongside the others.

G: And I think there's a moral obligation associated with it. Noel and I are lucky enough to have a lot of privilege in our lives. And I think it's important for people who have privilege to share that privilege. 

N: Before I forget as well, I really appreciate I Live Here I Give here because we need to build a community of philanthropy in Austin. We don't have the historical giving patterns that Dallas and Houston and Fort Worth have. We have a lot of money, but we struggle to pull in a lot of people to give. And I think the mission of I Live Here Give Here is critically important to help ensure giving in any capacity is happening here locally.

Q: What are some of your favorite causes or local nonprofits to support?

N: Mine has been private health primarily. 

G: We support HAAM, the Health Alliance For Austin Musicians, Hill Country Ride for Aids. We're very big supporters of Vivent, of course.

N: OutYouth, Helping Hands.

G: Oh yes. And Equality Texas. HRC, the Human Rights Campaign. The Austin LGBT Chamber of Commerce, LGBT Bar Association, and the LGBT State Bar of Texas. And then we also support local social clubs like Austin Eagle and Austin Leather Crew.

N: But also supporting local organizations like Pease Park, is an important one for us. We live just a half block off the park. It’s essentially our front yard! They have a Pride Picnic coming up on June 28th that Gary and I are co-chairing. We watch thousands of people walk to that park every weekend. I mean thousands of people. And I really support Pease Park's efforts to support pride during this time. There's been so much pullback from corporate sponsorships and people have kind of kept a distance and Pease Park is embracing for their Pride in the Park Picnic.

G: The way we see it, all of those have to combine together because it's all about networking and it's all about bringing people into these organizations and these spaces.

Q: Other than using the privilege that you mentioned and being able to align your day-to-day business to your philanthropic efforts. What inspires you to give back?

G: Karma. I think it's karma for good luck, you know? It's like if you see a dollar bill on the ground and you don't bend over to pick it up, it's bad luck. It's the same kind of thing with giving back. If you put good out there, good comes back to you. And I would certainly say even though we've done a lot of volunteer work and given money to all these organizations, I think we're the ones who've come out ahead in terms of the community that it's created for us. And the friendships.

Noel and I are very fortunate to have a broad social circle and lots of friends and we can trace almost all of those back to these different organizations and the time we've spent with them. So I think our life really has become centered around this work because that's where we have created our community.

N: And I had a very philanthropic mother that really believed in the importance of philanthropy. One of our children just got a job at a hospital system and they match up to $1,000 of your giving. And she asked me where she should put her money. So I'm like, good! We’re helping to pass it down generationally!

Q: It seems like you both hold each other accountable and motivated to give back together. Can you speak to how you give back as a couple? 

N: Well, we only have a limited amount of resources and time and because of that you have to make those decisions together.

G: Yes, it's a matter of considering our bandwidth as a couple. Some couples spend their time out on the golf course or they spend it out at the coast. And that’s their activity that they like to do together. For Noel and I, this is the activity that we engage in to spend time together. 

 Q: At I Live Here I Give Here, we don't tend to use the word philanthropy very often as we know most people associate that word with large scale donations. But it’s a word you’ve used a number of times in this interview, so we’re curious how you describe philanthropy?

G: I think philanthropists are people who are rich. And Noel and I, we're not rich by any means. So we use it more in terms of our advocacy and volunteerism. We advocate for these organizations and we advocate for these causes as a form of our volunteerism.

A philanthropist is what you do to get your name put on the building. Well, we're not looking to get our names put on a building.

N: Right, we ain't got building money. We probably could buy a brick somewhere.

But I think the mindset is that you need to serve as an example for other people, right? If you're giving a little, like 10 bucks, it makes a difference. Just shows support and effort. So, we like to give what we can and how we can to serve as an example to others that it's important to do.

G: And that because there's a mentoring component to it as well. You've got to bring young people and young professionals into these models. And Noel and I do try to serve as an example to the next generation and encourage them to be involved in these projects.

Q: This is a great segue into our last question. As leaders in the local giving space, how are you approaching others to join you in giving back?

N: Well, quite simply, you invite people.

G: I was going to say the exact same thing! You invite them. You've got to invite them into these spaces.

N: Every board that I've been on, someone's invited me to be on it. So we try to do that. We'll invite people over to our house for a fundraiser and invite them to be part of it. And for some people it works.

G: I can name numerous examples of people who we've invited to do things and they come back to the next one. And then they come back the next one and before long they're out there doing it themselves. I can give a lot of examples of how younger people have parlayed that into their professional lives. Giving back has led to jobs and it's led to occupations through these connections they've been able to make through volunteering for these nonprofit type events.
And again, it goes back to what we started with that whole karmic kind of thing. That the good work that they did has come back to them now.