This past Monday marked a momentous occasion for New York City’s largest poverty-fighting organization, the Robin Hood Foundation. Nearly 4,000 guests (including Jennifer Lopez, Jacob Gottlieb and Oprah Winfrey) descended on the Jacob Javits Center in New York City to celebrate three decades of work in support of the organization’s mission to improve the living standards for 1.8 million low-income New Yorkers.
The annual gala is well-known for attracting an A-list crowd and this year’s event was no exception with celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Seinfeld, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Michelle Wolf in attendance. Comedians Colin Jost and Michael Che were the hosts of an evening full of entertainment including a chorus line of dancers, a lively DJ, and a performance by Jennifer Lopez.
Founded in 1988, the Robin Hood Foundation is dedicated to alleviating the issues associated with poverty in New York City. The Robin Hood legacy includes providing over 100,000 hardworking New Yorkers with jobs and securing stable housing for over 30,000 families. Last year Robin Hood donated more than $129 million to over 200 poverty-fighting organizations that provide childhood and youth development, education, jobs and economic security, disaster relief, and basic survival and support services.
The foundation is considered to be “one of the most innovative and influential philanthropic organizations of our time” (Fortune) and is led by a diverse staff that includes PhDs, attorneys, nonprofit leaders, government officials, management experts, musicians, actors, journalists, yoga instructors, and chefs. Robin Hood is led by several boards and councils and all of the foundation’s administrative costs are 100% covered by its board members. This, combined with the organization’s metrics-driven philosophy, enables Robin Hood to ensure that every dollar is optimized.
Robin Hood’s annual gala is well-known for being a major fundraising event for the foundation. For years it has been among the biggest charitable events in New York City raising tens of thousands of dollars in a single evening. It’s largest year-to-date was 2015 with $101 million raised. Each year guests look forward to the end of dinner when the donations are totalled on a large billboard.
At this year’s gala, however, the big unveiling was cut short. Auctioneer Jamie Niven stopped the donation tally at the $15 million mark and turned the stage over to Robin Hood co-founder, Paul Tudor Jones. Decked out in a green Robin Hood costume, Jones proceeded to encourage guests to change their mindset to focus on the work, not the money. Robin Hood has since confirmed that they will not release the total money raised and have asked that people instead focus on the “thousands of poverty fighters” working to change lives.
Without the final total being revealed, we will not be able to see how this year’s event stacks up against previous years, but we can be certain that the evening was a success. Jones confirmed that “we were blown away by the generosity” and said that the event surpassed 2016’s $54.5 million in donations.
In addition to the celebrity guests, the event also included prominent members of the financial community including Steve Cohen, owner of Point72 Asset Management, David Tepper of Appaloosa Management, Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates, and Jacob Gottlieb of Visium Asset Management. Robin Hood is among a number of Gottlieb’s philanthropic interests focused on reducing poverty including God’s Love We Deliver and Covenant House. Throughout the evening Gottlieb could be seen connecting with other members of New York City’s finance community including Lloyd Blankfein, Ashok Varadhan, Bill Ackman, and Jim Cramer.
