Robin Hood Foundation

Robin Hood has been criticized for a lack of transparency that is at odds with the reporting and metrics-driven demands it makes of grant recipients, as well as for its connection to hedge fund industry groups that advocate for favorable tax treatment that decreases revenues to governments that provide public services to low-income residents. ³

Background

Founded in 1988 by hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones, the Robin Hood Foundation has been described by the New York Times as “a favorite charity on Wall Street and among hedge funds ⁴ leveraging its connections to wealthy hedge fund and financial industry leaders to become the largest grantmaking organization of its kind in New York City by 2005. ⁵ Some of its high-profile supporters have included disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, hedge fund billionaire George Soros,  former Soros associate and hedge fund billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller, Childrens Defense Fund leader Marian Wright Edelman, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, Home Depot co-founder Kenneth G. Langone, former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, ABC News host Diane Sawyer, actress Gwyneth Paltrow, and the CEOs of major companies such as Lehman Brothers, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, and Universal Music Group. ⁶

As of May 2026, Robin Hood had raised more than $3 billion since its founding in 1988. In 2025, it reported distributing $140 million in grants to 295 recipients. ^{7 8 9}

Activities

Grant Readiness and Insights Training

In addition to providing grants, the Robin Hood Foundation works with new nonprofits through its Grant Readiness and Insights Training (GRIT) program to advise them on how to align their programming with grantmaker goals. It has been reported that the program has led to participants changing their boards of directors, events, and evaluations to apply for grants from corporations and philanthropic organizations. ¹⁰

Poverty Tracker

The Robin Hood Foundation operates a “Poverty Tracker” dashboard on its website in conjunction with Columbia University that makes claims such as “More than 50 percent of New Yorkers experienced food hardship at least once over a four-year period” and “Almost half of New Yorkers wouldn’t be able to cover an expense of $400 with cash.” ¹¹ These figures are at odds with official poverty metrics, which Robin Hood attributes to its use of a proprietary and unique measure of “poverty” that is specific to New York City. ¹¹

Grantmaking

Robin Hood’s model is to distribute as much each year in grants as it receives from donors, while its board members fund its administrative overhead costs. ⁸

It attempts to apply financial industry principles to its grant programs, calculating a return on assistance to the low-income individuals per dollar of cost to Robin Hood. ^{12 13}

Robin Hood’s grant programs include funding for education, job preparation, emergency housing, food pantry, healthcare, legal services, and other social programs. It also funds technology programs seeking to address poverty, education technology programs, and childcare programs. ¹

In 2022, Robin Hood partnered with the New York Community Trust to launch the Funds for the Newest New Yorkers grant program. As of May 2026, Robin Hood has contributed $12 million to the program since 2022, targeting newly arriving migrants and asylum seekers. It funds legal services, social services case management, education programs, job preparation programs, and childcare for newly arrived immigrants. ¹⁴ The program has received $1 million from United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York, $1 million from the Ford Foundation, $500,000 from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, $500,000 from Trinity Church NYC, $250,000 from the Altman Foundation, $250,000 from the Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, $150,000 from M&T Bank, $150,000 from the Endeavor Foundation, and $100,000 from the Scherman Foundation. ¹⁵

Advocacy

In December 2025, the Robin Hood Foundation published a report titled, “Partnership Against Poverty: An Agenda for Collaboration with the Mamdani Administration,” announcing a partnership with the administration of incoming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) to advocate for policies to address housing issues, food security, education issues, poverty, and for how the issues impact different races. ¹⁶

The report advocated funding job-preparation programs, increasing the minimum wage, and increasing wages for government employees. ¹⁷

To address housing issues, the report advocated low-income housing development subsidies and tax credits, increased funding for housing vouchers, and reduced requirements for low-income housing development approvals. It also advocated increased funding for existing housing programs to make payments for individuals who have late rent payments, full funding for legal counsel for tenants facing eviction, and funding for tenant protection programs. ¹⁷

Robin Hood’s December 2025 report outlines a list of existing early childhood education, K-12 education, and higher education programs for which it advocated for increasing funding. It also advocated for increasing wages for childcare workers and teachers, increasing parental leave requirements, establishing a universal child-care program, and decreasing class size limits for low-income schools. ¹⁷

In 2018, Robin Hood released a report co-authored by academics at Columbia University and Robin Hood staff that opposed changes the Trump administration had proposed to immigration regulations. These “Public Charge” reforms would deny entry to immigrants who might potentially require government-funded services such as food stamps or Medicaid. ¹⁸

Leadership

The Robin Hood Foundation was founded in 1988 by Paul Tudor Jones II and five fellow hedge fund managers. Its board has grown to include some of the most powerful people on Wall Street, including the CEOs of Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase and leaders of some of the largest hedge funds in the world ¹⁹

As of May 2026, Richard Buery, Jr. was CEO of Robin Hood and a member of the Independent Rikers Island Commission, the New York State Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council, and a public service fellow at the NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. He previously served as the Deputy Mayor of the City of New York, the chief of policy and public affairs for the KIPP Foundation, the co-chair of the New New York Panel, a partner of the Perception Institute, and as the president and CEO of the Children’s Aid Society. ²⁰

As of May 2026, Jason Cone was the chief public policy officer of Robin Hood and previously served as its president. ²¹ As of December 2025, he was appointed to sit on the youth and education committee for NYC then-mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (D)’s transition team. ²²

Connection to Hedge Fund Industry

The Robin Hood Foundation is closely connected to the Managed Fund Association (MFA), which is the primary lobbying organization for the hedge fund industry. ²³ MFA Chairman John Torell was the CFO and managing director for Robin Hood founder Paul Tudor Jones’ hedge fund, Tudor Investment Corporation. ^{24 25}

As of May 2026, 15 of Robin Hood’s 47 board of directors are hedge fund managers and eight are executives at banks or other finance institutions. ²⁶

Robin Hood has been criticized for those connections, primarily by left-wing interests that promote higher taxes on hedge funds and other financial industry entities. ²³ They claim that Robin Hood is a vehicle for tax avoidance by hedge fund managers, and that it inappropriately subsidizes the lobbying interests of the MFA.

Funding

With its hedge fund and finance industry roots, the Robin Hood Foundation places what Institutional Investor Magazine described as an “unusual emphasis” for a nonprofit on its fundraising figures, and has been criticized for having, “too much emphasis on fundraising, not enough on results.” ⁸

Robin Hood holds an annual gala that is one of the largest fundraising events in the country, and was attended by financial industry executives, politicians, entertainment celebrities, and other high-profile individuals. ^{27 28} Auction listings at the event frequently include celebrity-focused “experiences” such as music lessons from famous musicians such as Coldplay’s Chris Martin or the opportunity to play sports with professional athletes like NFL quarterback Tom Brady. ⁶ At the 2019 event, 23 attendees each pledged to donate $1 million to the organization. ^{29 30}

In 2009, billionaire philanthropist George Soros made a $50 million grant to Robin Hood, which was the largest donation in the group’s history at the time. ³¹ The grant was contingent on the members of Robin Hood’s board matching Soros’s donation. Soros has been a donor to Robin Hood for decades and had previously made a $4.5 million grant in 1997 that was also at the time the largest donation the organization had received to date. ³²

Criticism and Controversies

A report by Hedge Clippers analyzed Robin Hood ’s donors and estimated that for every $1 donated to Robin Hood, they received the equivalent of $44 in tax avoidance and support for tax policy advocacy that favored their interests. ²³

Charity evaluation organization GiveWell also performed an evaluation on Robin Hood and criticized its lack of transparency and accountability, while also questioning whether Robin Hood’s “impact-focused giving” delivered the claimed benefits. GiveWell concluded that Robin Hood’s grantmaking model is poor: “Robin Hood has essentially no transparency, and essentially no accountability, to the public and to its donors (at least the smaller donors, i.e., those giving tens of thousands of dollars).” ^{33 34}