Go Daddy exec, wife plan major philanthropic effort

• Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation already has donated millions to causes in Phoenix and elsewhere
• Foundation likely would become one of Arizona's 10 biggest givers
• Go Daddy is the world's largest registrar of Internet domain names

PHOENIX -- Go Daddy founder and Executive Chairman Bob Parsons and his wife, Renee, are quietly becoming two of the area's most generous philanthropists.

The couple in February created a charitable organization, The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation, which already has donated $12 million to causes, including the Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS, Phoenix-based homeless shelter provider UMOM New Day Centers and the Semper Fi Foundation, which helps severely wounded veterans.

The foundation's plan is to donate up to tens of millions of dollars a year depending on the needs of local charities and organizations outside Arizona , Bob Parsons said.

"I made my living here, and I feel we have an opportunity to help out where there's some really critical needs," he said. "We're there to help when there's nobody else that's going to help."

The Parsons Foundation's donations this year likely will place it among the state's 10 biggest givers, based on fiscal year 2010 and 2011 donations reported to the Internal Revenue Service by other Arizona-based charitable trusts and foundations.

According to IRS documents, the Arizona-based foundation with the largest total donated for the year ended March 31, 2011, was the Arizona Community Foundation, which collects and distributes funds contributed by third-party donors. Its giving totaled $33.4 million.

The Parsons Foundation joins a short list of charitable organizations created by former Arizona executives and their spouses, including the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust, named after the former Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette publisher, and the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, founded by the widow of Motorola Inc. founder Paul Galvin.

One difference between the Parsons Foundation and the Pulliam and Piper trusts is that the trusts were not active until after their founders' deaths.

Parsons, a billionaire who turned 62 in November, said the Parsons Foundation's goal is to solicit funding requests from legitimate charities, evaluate them and make donations based on each organization's needs. Charities can submit requests through the Parsons Foundation website, theparsonsfoundation.org

The foundation's first round of donations went primarily to groups whose missions have personal significance to Parsons.

A U.S. Marine veteran who was wounded in combat during the Vietnam War, Parsons is a longtime supporter of groups such as the California-based Semper Fi Foundation, which received $1 million this year from the foundation.

Parsons has said he lost two cousins to HIV/AIDS during the early years of the epidemic. In September, the foundation donated $3.5 million to the Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS for renovations to its health center and pledged to match up to $1.5 million in additional donations from the community.

Go Daddy for years has supported UMOM, both through donations and volunteerism, UMOM CEO Darlene Newsom said.

In late October, the foundation gave UMOM $5 million to pay off the mortgage on its New Day Shelter facility in Phoenix, which houses more than 150 homeless families and individuals.

"It's a game-changer for UMOM," Newsom said of the donation. "It allows us to move forward with our vision of helping homeless families."

Newsom said funding from the Parsons Foundation will allow UMOM to open 20 additional rooms for homeless families at a time when charitable donations are down overall.

The foundation also donated $2.5 million this year to an organization called Hope for Haiti to build two Haitian schools.

Founded in 1997, Go Daddy has grown into the world's largest registrar of Internet domain names, with more than 50 million domains registered thus far. It also provides Web-hosting and cloud-computing services.

In June 2011, Parsons sold 70 percent of Go Daddy to a private-equity partnership led by KKR, a New York-based global investment firm, for $2.25 billion.

In February,Forbes magazine listed Parsons at No. 854 on its 2011 roster of the world's richest people, with an estimated net worth of about $1.5 billion.

Parsons still has a 30 percent stake in Go Daddy and is the company's executive chairman, but he said the Scottsdale-based company's day-to-day operations no longer are his concern.

"I do what a chairman does," he said. "I'm here to give advice when they need it, and when somebody comes to me and they have an issue, I tell them what I think, and then what they do is their business."

During his tenure as Go Daddy CEO, the company was a target of criticism and even boycotts for its racy advertisements, which many have described as sexist and demeaning to women.

Parsons told a group of investors and entrepreneurs at a conference in November that the use of well-endowed, scantily clad women in Go Daddy's advertisements is largely responsible for the company's success.

Still, he said Go Daddy's private-equity investors are planning to tone down the ads somewhat. "With my new partners we're going to mellow it, but the company will always be edgy," he said.

Parsons said Renee handles the foundation's day-to-day affairs.

Parsons largely focuses on his other business interests, which include 10 motorcycle dealerships, a real-estate investment firm that owns a half-dozen Scottsdale shopping centers, and a hedge fund.

"Most of my time is spent in my other businesses making the money so we have it when the need arises," he said.