Susquehanna Foundation

School Choice

Much of Susquehanna’s grantmaking reflects the philanthropic priorities of Janine Yass, wife of Susquehanna International director Jeffrey Yass. Janine Yass has sat as vice chair of the Center for Education Reform and as of 2026 was an emeritus member of the center’s board.  ³

Yass wrote a 2017 opinion piece for the Washington Examiner supporting Trump administration Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her efforts supporting school choice: “If you judge from the tens of thousands of families on waiting lists for charter schools and for scholarships in private schools it is apparent that poor families are desperate for someone who will fight for them for a change.”  ⁴

Boys’ Latin Charter School

In 2007, Janine Yass founded the Boys’ Latin Charter School in Philadelphia, modeled after Boston Latin School. The application was delayed for a year because the American Civil Liberties Union and the Women’s Law Center objected to the creation of a single-sex charter school. ⁵

In 2011, Boys’ Latin graduated its first senior class; all Boys’ Latin seniors were graduated, while 40 percent of Black students in Philadelphia did not graduate high school in that year. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported the school had “a rowing team, a jazz band, a mock-trial club, a rock band called the Demerits, fencing, soccer, Web design, and a drama program.”  Half of the seniors had been accepted to college, and these students had received $800,000 in college scholarship money. ⁶

By 2017, two Boys’ Latin students had perfect scores on the National Latin Exam, 60 percent were recognized for achievement for their Latin test scores and 20 percent for outstanding achievement. “I invite anyone who doubts what this does for our students to come to a graduation and watch 100 black boys sharply dressed in caps and gowns and proudly reciting their school pledge in Latin,” Boys’ Latin CEO David Hardy told the Wall Street Journal.  “It defies the low expectations society puts on young black men.” ⁷

Philadelphia Schools Partnership

The Susquehanna Foundation’s largest grant in 2019 was $3.3 million to the Philadelphia Schools Partnership, an organization founded in 2010 that supports public, charter, and Catholic schools in Philadelphia. ⁸  In addition, Jeffrey and Janine Yass have personally donated over $5 million to the partnership. Other donors of over $5 million include the Maguire, Walton Family, and William Penn Foundations.  Donors of between $1 million and $5 million include the Hilda and Preston Davis, Dell, Gates, Patricia Kind Family, McCausland, and Wisner Foundations, the City Fund, and the Otto Haas Charitable Trust. ⁹

In 2017 the partnership announced that it had donated $80 million to 49 Philadelphia schools that served 25,000 students and launched a capital campaign to raise an additional $60 million to serve an additional 15,000 students. ¹⁰

The partnership supports school reform efforts beyond its grantmaking.  In 2013, the partnership, collaborating with the Gates Foundation, funded a paper by the National Council on Teacher Quality that said Philadelphia teachers had a too-short workday, received extra pay for advanced degrees that had no effect on how they performed in the classroom, and paid too little for health care, since health insurance in Philadelphia was free for teachers. ¹¹  Also in 2013, the partnership called for eliminating seniority in hiring and firing decisions, a move Philadelphia Union of Teachers lawyer Ralph J. Teti called “a legal atomic bomb.” ¹²

In 2018 the partnership, with a grant from the Arnold Foundation, created applyphillyschools.org, allowing parents to apply to all the city’s charters with a single application. ¹³

Other Grants

The Susquehanna Foundation’s second-largest grant in 2019 was $1.2 million to the Mastery Charter Schools Foundation, a nonprofit affiliated with 24 charter schools in Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey. ¹⁴

The foundation also donated $500,000 to the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm. Susquehanna’s president, Arthur Dantchik, was a member of the Institute for Justice board as of 2026.  ¹⁵

The foundation made one other six-figure grant in 2019: $250,000 to the Papanicolaou Corps for Cancer Research. ⁸

As of 2026, Arthur Dantchik was the president of the Susquehanna Foundation’s board of directors as well as a managing director and management committee member of the Susquehanna International Group, LLP, which he co-founded. He has also been a board member of ByteDance, the company that created TikTok, and a board member of the Claws Foundation, which he co-founded. Previously, he worked with fellow Susquehanna co-founder, Jeffrey Yass, as a professional gambler in Las Vegas. ^{16 17 18 19}

As of 2026, Jeffrey Yass was the vice president of the Susquehanna Foundation’s board of directors. He co-founded the Susquehanna International Group, LLP. Previously, he was a vice chair of the Cato Institute, member of the Claws Foundation’s board of directors, and a professional gambler in Las Vegas with fellow Susquehanna cofounder Arthur Dantchik. ^{20 19 21 22}

As of 2026, Andrew Frost was a vice president of the Susquehanna Foundation’s board of directors and a co-founder of Susquehanna International Group, LLP. ^{23 19}

As of 2026, Robert Sack was the treasurer of the Susquehanna Foundation’s board of directors and the associate director and chief financial officer of Susquehanna International Group, LLP. ^{24 19}

As of 2026, Theodore Bryce was the secretary of the Susquehanna Foundation’s board of directors, the chief operating officer of Susquehanna International Group, LLP, and a trustee of Drexel University. ^{25 26 19}

As of 2026, Mark Dooley was a member of the Susquehanna Foundation’s board of directors as well as a managing director of the Susquehanna International Group, LLP; trustee of the Germantown Academy; board member of the Sun Valley Community School; and a trustee of the Abington-Jefferson Memorial Hospital. ^{27 19}