NET WORTH: $5 billion
SOURCE OF WEALTH: Inherited, investments
FUNDING AREAS: Environment, Education, New York
OVERVIEW: Robert Ziff is the middle son of the late William Ziff, Jr. Robert has two siblings, older brother Dirk and younger brother Daniel. All three Ziff brothers have been donating money to a variety of nonprofits for a number of years.
BACKGROUND: Though their media magnate father was reportedly “shocked” by the fact that none of his three sons wanted to run the family business after his retirement, the elder Ziff accepted the independent career paths each of them would take. Robert attended Cornell Law School, where he was the editor of the Cornell Law Review and graduated first in his class. However, he soon ended up working with his brothers in the hedge fund business at Ziff Brothers Investments (ZBI). After parlaying the family fortune into many billions, the brothers began winding down the firm over the past few years.
PHILOSOPHY: Like his brothers, Robert Ziff doesn’t really talk about his philanthropy. But as with his younger brother Daniel, Robert Ziff began donating money to a variety of organizations at a relatively young age. And like both of his brothers, he has established a foundation that directs a portion of his charitable giving. The Robert D. Ziff Foundation has close to $8.5 million in assets and has made around $1 million in grants annually in recent years.
ISSUES:
NEW YORK: Like his brothers, Robert Ziff’s personal philanthropy has a strong New York focus. Also like his brothers, Robert has given heavily to the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts. Among his first donations, was a $25,000 gift back in 1997. Since then, Robert has donated close to $3.5 million to the New York based performing arts center.
Robert has also recently donated $1 million each to WNET and THIRTEEN, which are both a part of the Educational Broadcasting Corporation (EBC). Other New York-based organizations to which Robert has made donations include the Robin Hood Foundation ($333,333), Central Park Conservancy ($100,000), Big Brothers and Big Sisters of New York ($30,000), the Wildlife Conservation Society ($25,000) and Gay Men’s Health Crisis ($8,350).
ENVIRONMENT: Robert Ziff’s environmental giving is relatively narrow in focus with the majority of his donations going to the National Audubon Society—which, incidentally, is also a big recipient of donations from both Dirk and Daniel Ziff. Over the years, Robert has donated $500,000 to the bird and wildlife conservation organization at a rate of around $100,000 annually. He has also donated smaller amounts to the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), although those donations are far less consistent than those to the National Audubon Society.
EDUCATION: Much of Robert’s higher-ed giving is focused on his two alma maters—Harvard and Cornell. While attending Harvard, Robert played on the intramural hockey team for Dunster House. Of his experience, he said “We had one rule: show up and you can play. We lost almost every game, but we had a great time.” In 1995, Ziff made a gift to Harvard to endow the school’s intramural hockey program, saying “The teams have spirit, but they need basic equipment, and I wanted them to also have House jerseys, which make it that much more fun for everyone.” Ziff’s endowment helped to equip the over 125 undergrads that participate in Harvard’s intramural hockey program annually. A few years later, Ziff gave Harvard’s official collegiate hockey program $2 million to endow the coach’s position. Robert Ziff continues to make donations to the school, ranging from $25,000 up to $1 million.
Robert Ziff’s donations to Cornell are education-focused, rather than sports-centric. In 2008, he established the Robert D. Ziff Professorship of Law. The endowment seems to be the only major donation Ziff has made to Cornell. Robert has made a handful of smaller donations to the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering as well as its Rackham Graduate School.
Ziff doesn’t focus all of his education-related donations on higher ed. He recently gave his first alma mater, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, a nearly $1.5 million gift. He's also given to the Browning School, a private boarding school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
LOOKING FORWARD: Robert Ziff’s charitable donations have been very consistent over the past few decades with very few outliers. The question now is whether he'll ramp up and professionalize his giving. He certainly has the money to do so. Meanwhile, his foundation has no website, staff, and provides no procedure to apply for a grant.
CONTACT:
Robert D. Ziff Foundation
350 Park Ave., 4th Fl.
New York, NY United States 10022-6022
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