Company Profile

Company Overview

The Robertson Foundation (the Foundation) is a private, family-led foundation established in 1996 by Julian H. Robertson, Jr. and his wife, Josie. By taking a targeted yet creative approach to philanthropy, Mr. Robertson, the Chairman of Tiger Management L.L.C., and his family seek to have a positive social impact and create a legacy that reflects the family`s values. The Robertson Foundation looks to maximize the impact of its efforts and drive superior results by making large, transformative grants that leverage the Foundation`s resources beyond the immediate funds committed, thereby reorienting the thinking, policies, and approaches of governmental entities and other philanthropic initiatives.

The Foundation currently seeks to make large-scale, high impact grants in three principal areas: education reform, environment, and medical research. Other areas of interest have already and will continue to emerge over time. Cross-cutting principles that inform the work in each area include focusing on leadership, leveraging strategic opportunities, partnering with grant recipients and aligned funders, and developing measurable outcomes with intermediate and long-term impacts. The Foundation’s bias – to respond quickly to society’s most urgent concerns with solutions that yield meaningful results – will remain a priority.

The Robertson Foundation takes a targeted, businesslike, results-oriented approach that is modeled more closely on private equity investing than on traditional philanthropic grant making. As a result, before the Foundation considers specific grants, its program staff, assisted by relevant experts, regularly conducts a data-driven scan of the area of interest to:

• develop an understanding of the issues that need to be addressed,
• survey the organizations that operate in the area,
• identify approaches being tried in the field and their degrees of success, and
• assess whether significant and measurable results can be achieved by the potential Robertson grant recipient.

Leadership plays an important role in selecting a grant recipient, especially because the Foundation seeks to contribute meaningfully to overall portfolio outcomes by partnering with grant recipients and challenging leadership continually to improve their work and impact. In every grant the Foundation makes, the implementation of the agreed-upon plan is monitored and the corresponding results are reviewed on a regular basis by the Foundation's program staff.

For more information on the Foundation and its work, please access www.robertsonfoundation.org.