The philanthropist Paul Newman

Paul Newman will always be best known for his work as an actor. But since 1982, he also made his mark as an entrepreneur with his Newman’s Own line of food products. A company that started as a joke between two friends, and never expected to turn a profit, has turned into a fixture in supermarkets around the world. Newman’s Own found its success from accessing a niche market that had been under-serviced. The food products they provide are created with organic ingredients – a strategy which hardly seems revolutionary today, but in the 1980s, was somewhat novel.

In addition Newman discreetly marketed the fact that buying into the Newman’s name would mean that you were contributing to a charity. The novelty of this approach certainly drew some customers in, just as the organic ingredients did. Starting with salad dressing and branching out to a variety of foods, Newman’s Own generated over $250 million in profits in its first two and a half decades.

What makes Newman unique among entrepreneurs is that he then donated all of that wealth to charity. So although Newman was creating wealth, he was not creating it for himself, instead giving it directly to others.