The Robin Hood Foundation is a charitable organization which attempts to alleviate problems caused by poverty in New York City, United States. The organization also administers a relief fund for disasters in the New York City area.
History
Robin Hood Benefit 2017 - For the 17th year in a row, the ATOMIC Set Construction team joined up with the Robin Hood Foundation to transform the Javits Center and WOW the nearly 4000 people in attendance for their...
Founded in 1988, Robin Hood was conceived by hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones. Peter Borish was also a founding board member of the organization.
The foundation combines investment principles and philanthropy to assist programs that target poverty in New York City. In 2006, the board of directors included such names as Jeffrey Immelt, Diane Sawyer, Harvey Weinstein, Marie-Josee Kravis, Lloyd Blankfein, of Goldman Sachs, Richard S. Fuld, Jr., formerly of Lehman Brothers, Glenn Dubin, of Highbridge Capital, Marian Wright Edelman and actress Gwyneth Paltrow.
Funding for the organization's activities comes from donations and fund raising efforts. In 2009, George Soros gave the foundation a US$50 million contribution. The money reportedly helped the organization raise significantly more than that amount. In 2001 The Concert for New York City provided funds for the organization. After Hurricane Sandy, the 12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief concert also provided funds for the foundation's efforts. Artists including The Rolling Stones, Robert Plant & The Strange Sensation, Shakira, John Legend, The Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, The Who and Aerosmith have performed at the group's annual fund raising galas.
In 2017, Robin Hood appointed author and veterans advocate Wes Moore as its CEO. Moore grew up in poverty in the Bronx before becoming a Rhodes scholar at the University of Oxford, a paratrooper and captain in the 82nd Airborne, and investment banker at Citigroup. Moore succeeds David Saltzman who was the Executive Director since co-founding the organization.
Approach
According to Fortune magazine, "Robin Hood was a pioneer in what is now called venture philanthropy, or charity that embraces free-market forces. An early practitioner of using metrics to measure the effectiveness of grants, it is a place where strategies to alleviate urban poverty are hotly debated, ineffectual plans are coldly discarded, and its staff of 66 hatches radical new ideas."
More specifically, the foundation states that it applies the following principles:
- Give 100 percent of every donation directly to programs helping poor New Yorkers.
- Identify and stop poverty at its roots.
- Protect and leverage Robin Hood’s investments by using sound business principles to help programs become more effective.
- Use metrics and qualitative data to evaluate programs and measure results to compare the relative poverty-fighting success of similar programs.
Programs
The Robin Hood Foundation works with more than 240 nonprofit organizations in New York and surrounding areas. They categorize their programs into "Core fund recipients" and "Relief fund recipients". Core fund recipients consist of four portfolios: early childhood, education, jobs and economic security, and survival. The relief fund also benefited victims of Hurricane Sandy.
Reception
The Robin Hood Foundation was featured in Fortune's 18 September 2006 issue, where the article states that the foundation is "one of the most innovative and influential philanthropic organizations of our time." On September 16, 2013 the news show 60 Minutes aired a report on Jones and how the Foundation has given away more than 25 million dollars.
References
External links
- The Robin Hood Foundation
