NET WORTH: UNKNOWN
SOURCE OF WEALTH: Real estate investments
FUNDING AREAS: Florida Community, Policy, Jewish Causes, Arts, TBD
OVERVIEW: Greene and his wife, Mei Sze Chan, are Giving Pledge signatories, so the majority of their wealth will eventually go to philanthropy. For now, Greene's philanthropy is hard to track, particularly because the status of the couple's foundation is unclear.
BACKGROUND: Jeff Greene is the son of working-class parents from Worcester, Massachusetts. Greene graduated from Johns Hopkins University. He later traveled the country selling circus tickets to pay for Harvard Business School. He bought his first house as a grad student, renting out rooms. He had 18 properties when he graduated. Today the bulk of his fortune is in real estate.
ISSUES:
FLORIDA COMMUNITY: Greene and Mei Sze founded the Greene School in Palm Beach. The school serves students in grades pre-K through 12 and is "dedicated to empowering high-performing students to be adaptive, confident and productive stewards of an evolving world." The couple both sit on the board of the school.
Greene has given modest sums to other cultural and civic institutions in South and Central Florida, including the Everglades Foundation, and the Central Florida YMCA Foundation. Greene and Mei Sze hosted a reception of the Palm Beach Police Foundation's Policeman's Ball in their home. Greene sits on the board of the Palm Beach Police Foundation, whose mission includes providing scholarships and grants for police department family members.
POLICY: Another Greene project, the Greene Institute, focused on policy development for inequality, education, and health but appears to be defunct at this time. Greene has twice run for office as a Democrat in the state of Florida.
JEWISH CAUSES: Grantees include Jewish Federation of Palm Beach. Jewish causes are likely a priority of Greene's, not only because of his Hebrew-school-teacher mother but because he himself was a Hebrew school teacher, one of the many jobs he took on while putting himself through school.
ARTS: Greene also appears to have some interest in art, with steady giving to the Perlman Music Program in New York. The outfit supports young talented string players. Greene and Mei Sze are honorary chairs at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, though it's unclear if the couple have supported that outfit financially.
LOOKING FORWARD: This couple’s giving remains opaque, and the status of their family foundation is not clear at this time.