For instance, it supports the Prize for Parent Organizing, which awards up to $1 million. The foundation has relationships with several other educational initiatives, all seemingly much smaller. The foundation is a general partner, according to the fund’s website, indicating a pledge of at least $50 million over five years. One of the foundation’s few public commitments, and by far the biggest, is to Blue Meridian, the youth poverty mega-donor collaborative fund. It’s no secret the Zoom Foundation cares about education and youth. What education- and youth-focused causes do the Mandels support? Here’s what we know about the Mandels’ philanthropy. They make some major investments in name-brand national nonprofits (Teach for America, Environmental Defense Fund) and at least one mega-donor fund (Blue Meridian Partners), and a lot of relatively small contributions to local institutions in and around Greenwich, where the foundation is headquartered. It suggests the couple - who met as students at Harvard Business School, where they both earned MBAs - favor a mixed portfolio with a few big bets. The public record, however, offers a rough portrait. The operation’s website leaves many questions unanswered, with no mention of grantees or its staff. As such, the couple declined a request for an interview or comment. The foundation has a “no-press policy and does most of its giving confidentially,” said Carmiña Roth, chief of staff of the Mandels’ family office, according to LinkedIn, via email. Zoom (unrelated to the ubiquitous video conferencing platform) is opaque by design, according to its staff. Not to mention, the couple commands a fortune estimated by Forbes at $3.9 billion, so this $1 billion foundation could get even larger. To put its size in perspective, Zoom’s nearly $90 million in 2020 grants exceeds what the couple’s home city of Greenwich, Connecticut, has budgeted for public safety and public works combined. It ranks with the philanthropies of better-known hedge-fund billionaires like Ray Dalio and Mets owner Steven A. Those hints shed much-needed light on a couple whose foundation is one of the largest by assets in Connecticut, according to FoundationIQ and public records. Numerous nonprofits have posted online thank yous and acknowledgements that credit the Mandels and their Zoom Foundation with contributions, most of which line up with the priorities stated on Zoom’s sparse website: education, environment and democracy. It also makes it impossible to know if donations sent to DAFs by ultra-wealthy donors like the Mandels have been distributed and, if so, where they went.īut in this case, we do have quite a few clues. All of this sets them apart from a more traditional foundation setup and - along with additional tax advantages and ease of setup - makes them wildly popular among donors large and small these days. Yet 99.9% of that sum went to a single recipient: Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, the nation’s largest manager of donor-advised funds.ĭAFs are famously not required to distribute the funds they receive on any timeline, nor do they have to release a list of recipients backed by the donor behind the fund. and his wife, Susan, have granted nearly a half-billion dollars through their foundation over the past decade. Hedge fund billionaire Stephen Mandel Jr.
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