Virtu Project donates to Timmy Foundation

The mood was light and the smiles were genuine as members of IU’s Virtu Project shook hands with associates of the Timmy Foundation on Thursday in the Maple Room of the Indiana Memorial Union.

Despite the floundering state of the economy, the Virtu Project donated $7,710 to the Timmy Foundation this year. The Virtu Project is a mock investment portfolio managed by students in IU’s Liberal Arts and Management Program, and investors donate the returns earned on their pretend investment. The Timmy Foundation is a nonprofit organization that funds hospitals and student trips to nine medically under-served countries, including Ecuador, Colombia and Nigeria.

The Virtu Project is in its third year, and this is the first year they were able to donate to the Timmy Foundation.

Each year, the Timmy Foundation sponsors an internship for a student in the Liberal Arts and Management Program. Last year, junior Krista Bergman was chosen for the internship. Because Timmy is such a dynamic foundation, Bergman said she had an opportunity to have a real impact on the organization.

“I had my own project of patient-tracking in Ecuador,” Bergman said. “It’s one of the best things I’ve done at IU.”

The money raised by Virtu Project was made through a mock financial portfolio put together by the Virtu members, Bergman said.

For the mock portfolio, Virtu Project members found donors and asked them to pledge a phantom sum of money that members would put in their portfolio and invest in the stock market at different levels, Bergman said.

Junior Brock Jones, future president of the Virtu Project, said three teams made up the project: investment, funds development and accountability. As part of the investment team, Jones’ job was to research potential donors and decide how to invest the pledged money.

Since the investment team could not actually invest, members closely followed the stock market to determine how much they were earning or losing, Jones said.

If the Virtu program makes money, donors make a pledge to give the program members whatever profit they would have made in the stock market, Bergman said.

“If someone pledges $10,000 to our portfolio, we manage the money like it’s real,” Bergman said. “We would work with it for a year, and, say we’re ahead by 10 percent, they would owe us $100.”

Most of the investors included IU faculty and staff members, Bergman said.
“The administration for IU had been very supportive and supplied a large amount of donations,” she said.

During the luncheon, Matt Leroue, international programs coordinator for the Timmy Foundation, said the students made possible all the nonprofit work the foundation does.

“Without seeing the poverty of these nations, the Virtu organization decided to help,” Leroue said. “That helped us move beyond just the IU chapter of our foundation.”
Sophomore Patrick Onkka, future vice president of the Virtu Project, said the project was the first of its kind.

“It combines giving you the education you need to approach something like the stock market with business skills that you can use outside of the classroom,” Onkka said.