The Litterman Family Foundation is a private grantmaking foundation based in New York City. It is the private grantmaking foundation of Wall Street financier Robert B. Litterman. ¹

The foundation is a supporter of relatively noncontroversial causes such as education- and health care-related charities. But the foundation is also a major supporter of environmentalist causes and has supported organizations that advocate for a carbon tax. ¹

In 2016, the foundation funded a study that was released by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Engineering and Medicine division that claimed to be able to show how climate change was making extreme weather events worse and that further claimed to be able to measure how exactly climate change made an extreme weather event that much worse. ²

Overview

The Litterman Family Foundation is a private grantmaking foundation based in New York City. It is the personal giving vehicle of Robert B. Litterman, who works on Wall Street. ³

The foundation first received its tax-exempt status in 1996. ⁴

Support For Education and Health Care

The foundation is a supporter of education- and health-care related causes. The foundation supports educational institutions to which either Robert Litterman or his wife Mary have connections. The foundation supports Stanford University Foundation, University of Minnesota Foundation, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Litterman received his BS in human biology from Stanford University and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota. Prior to going to work at Goldman Sachs, Litterman was a professor at MIT. ³

In addition to backing universities to which Litterman has a personal connection, he is also a supporter of the United Negro College Fund. ¹

Litterman also has an interest in health care. He is on the board of the left-leaning Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which specializes in health care philanthropy. The foundation has also given to Seeing Eye, Inc., Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, National Foundation for Cancer Research, Overlook Hospital Foundation, and the American Cancer Society. ³

Support For Environmental Causes

The foundation supports various left-of-center environmental causes. It is a supporter of numerous environmentalist organizations including the World Wildlife Foundation, of which Litterman is a board member. The foundation has also supported National Park Conservation Association, the Linden Trust for Conservation, Conservation Lands Foundation, Ceres, and the Environmental Defense Fund. ¹

The foundation is also a supporter of organizations that want to impose a carbon tax such as Resources for the Future, Partnership for Responsible Growth, and the Niskanen Center. ¹

In 2016, the foundation helped fund a study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine that claimed to show that climate change was making extreme weather events worse. In addition, the study claimed to show that it is possible for scientists to estimate how much influence climate change had on an extreme weather event and how it made it worse. ²

The foundation is also a supporter of the Intentional Endowments Network (IEN), which aims to have universities shift their endowments to support an “equitable, low-carbon, and regenerative economy” in order to address climate change, racial injustice, and widening economic inequality. ⁵

Funding

According to the 2020 tax return, the foundation had $704,798 in revenue and made $560,000 in charitable contributions and had expenses of $580,935. The foundation had assets of $6,168,107. ⁴

1. “Robert And Mary Litterman”. Inside Philanthropy. Accessed October 10, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220706073934/https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/wall-street-donors/robert-b-litterman.
2. Flurry, Alan. “Report Finds Science Can Estimate Climate Change’s Influence On Some Extreme Events”. Athens Banner-Herald. Mar. 12, 2016 https://www.onlineathens.com/story/news/local/2016/03/12/report-finds-science-can-estimate-climate-changes-influence-some-extreme-events/15465493007/.
3. [1]”Robert And Mary Litterman”. Inside Philanthropy. Accessed October 10, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220706073934/https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/wall-street-donors/robert-b-litterman.
4. “Litterman Family Foundation, Full Filing – Nonprofit Explorer”.  Propublica. Accessed October 10, 2022. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/133805239/202111139349100001/full.
5. [1]”Intentionally Designed Endowments”.  Intentional Endowments Network. Accessed October 10, 2022. https://www.intentionalendowments.org/about_ien.