About

Inspired by a shared love for NYC, Robin Hood was created over a dinner of Chinese takeout by board members Paul Tudor Jones, Peter Borish, David Saltzman, and Glenn Dubin, along with Maurice Chessa. Their mission? Fighting poverty by adapting investment principles to charitable giving. Our first grants were made to the Association to Benefit Children and the Children’s Health Fund, totaling $52,000.

Robin Hood established a life-saving needle-exchange program and awarded our first housing grant to Housing Works and Harlem United to support New Yorkers living with HIV.

The Robin Hood Relief Fund was created to help those devastated by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and distributed more than $65M to organizations supporting families, survivors, and New York’s recovery. The Fund was reactivated during Superstorm Sandy in 2012, and again in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, the Fund has distributed over $230 million in aid to frontline organizations across the city.

Robin Hood created Single Stop to improve access to essential public benefits for low-income New Yorkers. Since its launch, the initiative has become an independent entity, providing access to $1.4B in public benefits and counting, and expanding to nine states across the country.

Robin Hood launched The Relay Graduate School of Education to provide better-trained teachers for schools and students in NYC and across the country. Relay has trained 12,000 teachers and counting.

Robin Hood launched the Veterans Initiative to fund wraparound services for vets and their families, bringing veterans’ homelessness in NYC to functional zero. The initiative was launched during a Veterans Summit event at the Intrepid Museum in Manhattan.

Blue Ridge Labs, an incubator for technology-based ventures that advance opportunity and upward mobility, became part of Robin Hood as a special initiative focused on developing tech powered solutions to help New Yorkers break the cycle of poverty.

Robin Hood launched the Fund for Early Learning (FUEL) initiative in 2016 to support children, families, and caregivers, and created the Learning + Technology Fund in 2018 to support tech-based learning in a digital world.

Robin Hood created the Child Care Quality and Innovation Initiative to improve and expand access to high-quality, affordable child care. Robin Hood also executed a public policy child care advocacy campaign that netted $3B for new or improved child care services in NYC.