Hedge fund billionaire Stephen Mandel Jr. and his wife, Susan, have granted nearly a half-billion dollars through their foundation over the past decade. Yet 99.9% of that sum went to a single recipient: Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, the nation’s largest manager of donor-advised funds.
DAFs are famously not required to distribute the funds they receive on any timeline, nor do they have to release a list of recipients backed by the donor behind the fund. All of this sets them apart from a more traditional foundation setup and — along with additional tax advantages and ease of setup — makes them wildly popular among donors large and small these days. It also makes it impossible to know if donations sent to DAFs by ultra-wealthy donors like the Mandels have been distributed and, if so, where they went.
But in this case, we do have quite a few clues. Numerous nonprofits have posted online thank yous and acknowledgements that credit the Mandels and their Zoom Foundation with contributions, most of which line up with the priorities stated on Zoom’s sparse website: education, environment and democracy.
Those hints shed much-needed light on a couple whose foundation is one of the largest by assets in Connecticut, according to FoundationIQ and public records. It ranks with the philanthropies of better-known hedge-fund billionaires like Ray Dalio and Mets owner Steven A. Cohen. To put its size in perspective, Zoom’s nearly $90 million in 2020 grants exceeds what the couple’s home city of Greenwich, Connecticut, has budgeted for public safety and public works combined. Not to mention, the couple commands a fortune estimated by Forbes at $3.9 billion, so this $1 billion foundation could get even larger.
Zoom (unrelated to the ubiquitous video conferencing platform) is opaque by design, according to its staff. The foundation has a “no-press policy and does most of its giving confidentially,” said Carmiña Roth, chief of staff of the Mandels’ family office, according to LinkedIn, via email. As such, the couple declined a request for an interview or comment. The operation’s website leaves many questions unanswered, with no mention of grantees or its staff.
The public record, however, offers a rough portrait. It suggests the couple — who met as students at Harvard Business School, where they both earned MBAs — favor a mixed portfolio with a few big bets. They make some major investments in name-brand national nonprofits (Teach for America, Environmental Defense Fund) and at least one mega-donor fund (Blue Meridian Partners), and a lot of relatively small contributions to local institutions in and around Greenwich, where the foundation is headquartered.
Here’s what we know about the Mandels’ philanthropy.
What education- and youth-focused causes do the Mandels support?
It’s no secret the Zoom Foundation cares about education and youth. One of the foundation’s few public commitments, and by far the biggest, is to Blue Meridian, the youth poverty mega-donor collaborative fund. The foundation is a general partner, according to the fund’s website, indicating a pledge of at least $50 million over five years.
The foundation has relationships with several other educational initiatives, all seemingly much smaller. For instance, it supports the Prize for Parent Organizing, which awards up to $1 million. Over the last few years, it’s also backed Teach for All, Summer on the Hill and the Connecticut education nonprofit ConnCAN.
Meanwhile, the Mandels are credited as donors by a long list of groups. Back in 2011, they gave $25 million toward the creation of an endowment for Teach for America, along with Laura and John Arnold, Eli and Edythe Broad, and the Robertson Foundation. In the decade since, it appears the Mandels have continued to back the organization. In 2017, the group’s annual report thanked them for more than $5 million in support that year alone, and in 2020, they were listed again among its donors. Stephen Mandel also serves on the group’s board.
It’s not the only educational nonprofit getting a big check from the Mandels. The couple gave over $1 million to the Harlem Children’s Zone in the 2021 fiscal year, as well as $250,000 to sponsor Success Academy’s benefit this spring.
There’s also a slew of low, five-figure gifts that show the types of organizations they support. Such awards have gone to YearUp, Facing History & Ourselves, and HASA, a hearing loss nonprofit focused on education. They’ve also given undisclosed gifts to SummerSearch, Waterside School, gap year group Omprakash and Care.org in the last few years, and four-figure gifts to the JED Foundation.
The couple also serve on a few educational boards, often an indicator of giving. Stephen formerly served as a trustee for Dartmouth, his alma mater; the elite high school Phillips Exeter Academy; and at a Stamford, Connecticut-based educational nonprofit, the Children’s School. Susan, meanwhile, has served on the board for her own alma mater, Vassar College.
What green groups does the couple favor?
The environment is another priority that Zoom names on its website. Based on past announcements, the foundation has a nearly decade-long relationship with the Echoing Green Fellowship, one of the nation’s premier environmental leadership programs. In 2020, the couple gave more than $100,000 to Echoing Green, whose long roster of social change fellows have included the likes of Michelle Obama and Van Jones.
The foundation has also backed research groups, including on environmental issues. For instance, it is listed as a research client of Columbia Law School’s Center for Public Research and Leadership. Back in 2015, it funded a report detailing which U.S. states are least prepared for climate-change-fueled flooding. The foundation also participates in the Biodiversity Funders Group.
While it’s hard to say how much they’ve given, we also know that the couple are major backers of the Environmental Defense Fund, a longtime favorite among ultra-wealthy environmental donors. Sue Mandel, who also co-founded Moms Clean Air Force, serves on the board of EDF, where Stephen was formerly a board member. Unsurprisingly, they are in EDF’s highest tier of donors. It’s a tight relationship: The couple participated in a four-day “trustee trip” to Puerto Rico organized by EDF in 2020.
As in other areas, their green giving has a local streak. The couple have made repeated, if relatively small, contributions to Environmental Advocates NY, at least until 2018. The Mandels were also once regular supporters of the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk, which is in their home state of Connecticut. Stephen’s hedge fund, Lone Pine, and its foundation are now backers, as well.
Democratic giving — and a controversial history
There are few online traces of grantmaking on democracy, the foundation’s final named priority. Neither Zoom nor the Mandels appear to be named as donors by such groups, other than as supporters of the Campaign Legal Center.
It’s impossible to say why there are so few online traces of their giving in this area. Yet one hint may be the criticism leveled at the Mandels amid a Bridgeport, Connecticut, school board fight in the early 2010s.
The foundation’s then-executive director, Meghan Lowney, waged an extensive email lobbying campaign to overhaul district governance, including mentioning Steve Mandel’s desire to make major changes at the school district, according to reporting by the Connecticut Post. Lowney told the paper she was acting independently. The local school board was subsequently replaced by a state-appointed panel, but the state’s Supreme Court ultimately overturned the move and ordered a special election.
The campaign attracted national coverage from the Wall Street Journal and on EdWeek’s op ed page. It also prompted local opponents to accuse the effort’s backers of holding a “hidden agenda” of using the district as a “laboratory” for pet policies. A few years later, the foundation came under more heat for paying for public policy fellows in the office of then-Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat who Mandel heavily supported.
Zoom’s preference for donor-advised funds predates these dust-ups, but it’s possible they contributed to how press-shy the foundation is these days, especially when it comes to work adjacent to politics.
A grantmaking force in Connecticut… and squash
Like many family foundations, not all of Zoom’s grants fit neatly into its named focus areas. For starters, despite its generally low profile, Zoom maintains some public presence in its home state of Connecticut. An example came in 2018, when the foundation supported Fairfield County’s Advocacy Day, an educational event for nonprofits. It’s also a member of the Connecticut Council for Philanthropy.
In recent years, the Mandels have given millions to Fairfield County’s Community Foundation, which their foundation once awarded $100,000, and where they maintain a donor-advised fund. The couple has also donated to a long list of Greenwich, Connecticut, institutions, including its library, hospital, land trust, film festival and food pantry.
New York cultural and educational institutions have also received many checks from the Mandels, most in the low five-figures. Awards have gone to the Frick museum, the Met, the Juilliard School, Central Park, Columbia Law School, New York Public Radio and the Park Avenue Armory arts space.
Squash is another passion for the Mandels, particularly Stephen, who played on the varsity team at Dartmouth and serves on the board of Squash and Education Alliance. His bio there says the hedge fund manager and his family are longtime supporters of urban squash programs around the nation, including SquashBusters, CitySquash and Squash Haven. The Mandels were also founding donors to the Arlen Spector U.S. Squash Center, which opened last year.
Who is in charge, and what might the future hold?
Zoom keeps its staffing as confidential as its grants. It listed no employees in last year’s IRS filing, following the 2020 departure of the foundation’s former leader Lowney after close to a decade at the helm.
The Mandels were the only members of Zoom’s board in 2021, which marked 20 years since the foundation’s launch. It’ll be interesting to see if any of their three adult children — Benjamin, Kate and Thomas — join in the years ahead.
Stephen was famously one of the late Julian Robertson’s “Tiger Cubs,” the many investors who worked at the hedge fund manager’s Tiger Management before striking out successfully on their own. Robertson was lauded for his generosity, but his giving particularly ramped up after he closed his fund in 2000. Now 66, Stephen stopped managing investments for his firm a couple years ago. Perhaps he will follow in his mentor's footsteps once again?