William Hannon was an entrepreneur in his real estate dealings and in how he approached philanthropy. While he provided many “straight-out” financial grants and gifts, he also believed in encouraging organizations to conduct fundraisers to generate money to support their projects.

Even though he was a supporter of fundraising, he rallied against fundraisers that had large overhead and resulted in little net profit to the organization. He was opposed to fundraisers such as cookie sales, holiday card and wrapping paper sales that saw children working hard for donations that went to cover products, production costs and overhead–resulting in only a small portion of the funds raised going to their schools or projects. He felt there was a better way.

William teamed up with his friend Ed Hogan, founder of Pleasant Hawaiian Holidays (now Pleasant Holidays), in launching the now famous “Hawaii Fundraising Trips,” whereby the Hannon Foundation donates unrestricted funds to organizations to enable them to obtain Hawaii trip packages at a significantly reduced cost if they so desire. The organizations use the Hawaii trip packages to conduct their own fundraisers. Each Hawaii trip package provides a trip for two people, including round trip airfare, ocean front accommodations at the Royal Lahaina Resort on the Maui coast, and $500 spending money at the Resort. William was very proud that the only cost to a school is the price of printing the fundraising tickets, which in turn results in “Almost 100% profit for our local schools.”

Since the William H. Hannon Foundation started the Hawaii Fundraising Trip Program in 1989, millions of dollars have been raised by schools and organizations throughout Southern California. Currently, the William H. Hannon Foundation provides monetary donations to enable one hundred organizations to sponsor Hawaii Fundraising Trips annually.