Last year, the Holloway Family Foundation gave away more than a million dollars — a powerful milestone on a 30-year journey and a testament to the family’s philanthropic legacy and careful wealth management.

“When we established the foundation, it was very small,” says Carolyn Holloway, who cofounded the organization with her husband, Graham, in 1995. “Today, we are able to make gifts that we never imagined when it first started.”

The Holloway Family Foundation provides grants to help under-resourced communities access arts education, career development training and youth mentoring. Those pillars were developed with Graham’s spirit of generosity in mind — he lost his parents when he was young, but benefited from the care and mentorship of people in his hometown. That selflessness was not lost on him; as an adult he resolved to pay it forward, sharing his time, talent and wealth with countless others.

Gratitude was at the heart of the foundation’s creation, but sustained, long-term giving requires careful balance. If you give too much, you risk crimping the charitable potential. Investing imprudently can cause long-term harm. Plus, it is essential to have skilled and trustworthy professionals in place to handle accounting, tax and legal matters.

Enter Capital Group Private Client Services and Carolyn’s Private Wealth Advisor, Bill Carey. He offers guidance to help the foundation stay on track and works with the other specialists across the family’s holdings. And, of course, he’s consistently available to attend to any unexpected occurrences or answer any questions.

“I thought originally that maybe I was Bill Carey’s only client,” Carolyn says. “He’s always there for me. I can call him anytime. To have his team’s knowledge accessible to me is incredible. I know my assets are being well managed, and this enables me to help others.”

“Carolyn Holloway is perhaps one of the most humble, giving people I’ve ever met,” Bill adds. “You can’t help but love her.”

An investor’s windfall became the seed of a charitable endeavor.

The foundation’s roots reach back to the late 1980s, says Valerie Holloway Skinner, Graham and Carolyn’s daughter and the chair of the board.

“The story goes that Dad had invested in a technology startup in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s,” she relates. “That company took off, and within a year he had earned close to a million dollars from this one investment. Dad got our family together at Christmastime and told us, ‘This is not our money. God just blessed an idea I had. We’re going to give this money away.’ ”

Graham had heard about family foundations from his job at Capital Group, where he was an executive, and the family chose to adopt that format to start making charitable donations. “I’d give anything to know which one of his colleagues suggested a family foundation,” Valerie says. “I would send them a dozen roses every week. Serving as the president of the Holloway Family Foundation has been the greatest gift of my life.”

According to Valerie, the early days involved her, Carolyn and her brother Scott sitting around the kitchen table giving money away. “We didn’t have a mission statement or anything formal; we looked around and asked ourselves, ‘What do we see as the most immediate needs in our community, and how can we most effectively address them?’ ”

Those early grants went to causes close to the family’s hearts, such as assisting elderly adults, people with disabilities and marginalized children. As their gifting grew in scale and scope, it became apparent that ad hoc kitchen meetings wouldn’t be structured enough for the Holloways’ ambitions. Two of Graham and Carolyn’s nieces joined the board in the early 2000s. With their participation, the foundation’s mission began to solidify. As a board, they soon developed the pillars that guide them today.

Along the way, Capital Group Private Client Services was there to assist. Bill connected the family to other specialists. As the advisor for Carolyn and other family members, he had a holistic sense of the family’s overarching philanthropic goals.

“I knew how passionate Carolyn was to help her community,” Bill recalls. “The first time I met her, she walked me through the Palace Theatre in Georgetown, Texas, and I saw firsthand how she wanted to help build a new children’s theater in the city. I couldn’t help but want to be part of that, too.”

“The foundation has really grown, and it was a tremendous asset to have Bill help guide us in managing it,” Carolyn observes. “It took special skills and knowledge and commitment, and Bill was there.”

Today, the foundation is firmly focused on the future. It recently made some structural changes designed to make it easier to be generous during strong markets and to better weather downturns. And it’s poised to continue passing down their philanthropic tenets through the family line.

“We now have our third generation of family members on the board,” Valerie says. “They’re doing amazing things in their own lives independent of the foundation, but I believe board service has helped bake in not only the responsibility of wealth, but also the joy it brings to be a person of generosity.”

“I have always tried to emulate my father’s wisdom and my mother’s heart,” Valerie adds. “The Holloway Family Foundation has provided a vehicle for their values to be part of our family’s story for many generations to come. I cannot imagine an inheritance more important to my parents than that.”