The Charles H. Revson Foundation was founded in 1956 by Charles H. Revson, the founding President of Revlon Cosmetics as a vehicle for his charitable giving. He willed half of his estate to the Foundation upon his death. Julie Sandorf has been the President of the Foundation since January 2008.

Background

The Foundation was started as Revson and others provided over $10 million

dollars Dollar is the name of more than 25 currencies. The United States dollar, named after the international currency known as the Spanish dollar, was established in 1792 and is the first so named that still survives. Others include the Australian d ...

seed money Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' suggest ...

during his lifetime. The Foundation funded schools, hospitals, and service organizations serving the Jewish community, mostly located in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Upon his death, Revson endowed the Foundation with $68 million from his estate and granted the board of directors the discretion to chart the Foundation's future course. In 1978, the Foundation began a formal grant-making process, and since that time, has disbursed a total of 145 million dollars. The Foundation's endowment has grown to 200 million dollars, and it now disburses over 9 million dollars annually. The Foundation has been responsible for such projects as the

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

version of

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational television, educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation, and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Worksh ...

, known as

Rechov Sumsum ''Rechov Sumsum'' ( ; ) is the Israeli adaptation of the U.S. children's show ''Sesame Street''. The first three series of the show were a joint production of the Israeli Educational Television and the Sesame Workshop, a Worldwide American non-p ...

, and the documentary "Civilization and the Jews." The foundation also awarded the grant through which the ''

Gotham Gazette The ''Gotham Gazette'' is an online publication of the Citizens Union Foundation of the City of New York, a government watchdog group focusing on issues confronting New York City. Its purpose is fourfold: it reports daily on New York City news, ...

'' was created. In 2003, after 25 years, Eli Evans stepped down as the foundation's president, handing over the reins to

Lisa E. Goldberg John Edward Sexton (born September 29, 1942) is an American legal scholar. He is the Benjamin F. Butler Professor of Law at New York University where he teaches at the law school and NYU's undergraduate colleges. Sexton served as the fifteenth ...

, wife of

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

(NYU) President

John Sexton John Edward Sexton (born September 29, 1942) is an American legal scholar. He is the Benjamin F. Butler Professor of Law at New York University where he teaches at the law school and NYU's undergraduate colleges. Sexton served as the fifteenth ...

. After Lisa E. Goldberg's sudden death on January 21, 2007, the position was vacant until filled by Julie Sandorf, formerly the executive director of

Nextbook Nextbook is a nonprofit Jewish organization founded in 2003 by Elaine Bernstein's Keren Keshet Foundation to promote Jewish literacy and support Jewish literature, culture and ideas. The organization sponsors public lectures, commissions books o ...

, in January 2008.

Board of directors

*Cheryl Effron, Chair * Gerald Rosenfeld, Treasurer *Sharon Greenberger, Secretary *Stacy Dick *Dr.

Steven Hyman Steven Edward Hyman is Director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is also Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative B ...

*Dr. Robert Kingston *

Reynold Levy Reynold Levy is an American businessperson and author. He was president of Lincoln Center for 11 years, overseeing a $1.3 billion overhaul before stepping down in 2013. Levy served as president of the Robin Hood Foundation from 2015 to 2017. Among ...

Errol Louis Errol T. Louis (born August 24, 1962) is a New York City journalist and television show host. He has unsuccessfully run for office several times. Early life Louis was born in Harlem and raised in New Rochelle, New York, by his father, Edward J. ...

*Charles H. Revson Jr. *Pamela Wasserstein

Directors Emeritus

*Robert S. Rifkind ''Partner, Cravath Swaine & Moore'' *

Philip Leder Philip Leder (November 19, 1934 – February 2, 2020) was an American geneticist. Early life and education Leder was born in Washington, D.C., and studied at Harvard University, graduating in 1956. In 1960, he graduated from Harvard Medical Sch ...

Henry Louis Gates Jr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950), popularly known by his childhood nickname "Skip", is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of t ...

Helaine M. Barnett Helaine M. Barnett is an American legal aid attorney and law professor. She is a former president of the Legal Services Corporation and currently chairs the New York State Permanent Commission on Access to Justice. Early life and education Hela ...

* Victor Barnett *Alice Chandler * Robert Curvin *Suzanne Gluck *

Jeffrey Goldberg Jeffrey Mark Goldberg (born 1965) is an American journalist who is the editor-in-chief of ''The Atlantic''. During his nine years at ''The Atlantic'' before becoming editor, Goldberg became known for his coverage of foreign affairs. He moderated ...

Jerome Groopman Jerome E. Groopman has been a staff writer in medicine and biology for ''The New Yorker'' since 1998. He is the Dina and Raphael Recanati Chair of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chief of Experimental Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medi ...

Beatrix Hamburg Beatrix Ann Hamburg (née McCleary; October 19, 1923 – April 15, 2018) was an American psychiatrist whose long career in academic medicine advanced the field of child and adolescent psychiatry. Hamburg was the first known African-American to at ...

Matina Horner Matina Souretis Horner (born July 28, 1939) is an American psychologist who was the sixth president of Radcliffe College. Her research interests included intelligence, motivation, and achievement of women. She is known for pioneering the concep ...

* Arthur Levitt Jr. * Ruth B. Mandel *Dr. Paul A. Marks *

Martha Minow Martha Louise Minow (born December 6, 1954) is an American legal scholar and the 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard University. She served as the 12th Dean of Harvard Law School between 2009 and 2017 and has taught at the Law Schoo ...

Matthew Nimetz Matthew Nimetz (; born June 17, 1939) is an American diplomat and a former lawyer and retired managing director of a global private equity firm. He was the United Nations Special Representative for the naming dispute between Greece and the f ...

*Louis Perlmutter *John C. Revson *

Clifford Tabin Clifford James Tabin (born 1954) is chairman of the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. Education Tabin was educated at the University of Chicago where he was awarded a BS in physics in 1976. He went on to graduate school at Mas ...

Harold Tanner Harold Tanner (1932 – June 14, 2025) was an American investment banker and philanthropist. Background Tanner was born in 1932. He graduated from the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 1952 and earned an MBA from Ha ...

Benjamin Buttenwieser Benjamin Joseph Buttenwieser (October 22, 1900 – December 31, 1991) was an American banker, philanthropist and civic leader in New York. Background Buttenwieser was born to a Jewish family. His father was Joseph L. Buttenwieser. He had an ol ...

* Red Burns *

Joshua Lederberg Joshua Lederberg (May 23, 1925 – February 2, 2008) was an American molecular biology, molecular biologist known for his work in microbial genetics, artificial intelligence, and the United States space program. He was 33 years old when he won t ...

* Adrian W. DeWind *Harry Meresman * Simon Rifkind

Program areas

With Revson's giving as a guide, the board of directors for the foundation has established four program areas:

Urban affairs

The Foundation, based in New York City, focuses its urban program on the city's future. It seeks to enhance the capacity of individuals, organizations, and the public sector to improve New York and the lives of those who live and work there. Developing

leadership Leadership, is defined as the ability of an individual, group, or organization to "", influence, or guide other individuals, teams, or organizations. "Leadership" is a contested term. Specialist literature debates various viewpoints on the co ...

for New York is the goal of one group of foundation grants. These programs identify talented individuals, bring them together for learning, training, and the exchange of ideas, and build networks equipped to address the challenges of tomorrow. "Leaders are like dancers; they are born with talent but have to learn the steps," commented one participant. The programs build bridges across sectors, like neighborhood organizations and the business community, the school system and arts institutions, by including women and men from many fields and introducing them to players from diverse areas. They give leaders — and potential leaders — an opportunity to deepen their knowledge, gain skills, be exposed to different viewpoints and experiences, learn, and grow. The transfer of responsibility for many programs from Washington to state and

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state. Local governments typically constitute a subdivision of a higher-level political or administrative unit, such a ...

has had major implications for New York. Dramatic shifts in

welfare Welfare may refer to: Philosophy *Well-being (happiness, prosperity, or flourishing) of a person or group * Utility in utilitarianism * Value in value theory Economics * Utility, a general term for individual well-being in economics and decision ...

and other programs call for particular attention to the impact of policy changes on the most disadvantaged New Yorkers, who rely on such government aid. A portion of the Foundation's

grantmaking A grant is a fund given by a person or organization, often a public body, charitable foundation, a specialised grant-making institution, or in some cases a business with a corporate social responsibility mission, to an individual or another e ...

supports organizations that monitor actions taken in New York City and Albany, work to shape policies that benefit the city, and see that they are carried out fairly, efficiently, and in a timely manner. The Foundation has supported a variety of

project A project is a type of assignment, typically involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a specific objective. An alternative view sees a project managerially as a sequence of events: a "set of interrelated tasks to be ...

s to examine the possibilities for financing, delivering services, and

planning Planning is the process of thinking regarding the activities required to achieve a desired goal. Planning is based on foresight, the fundamental capacity for mental time travel. Some researchers regard the evolution of forethought - the cap ...

the urban environment in the next century. Several grants have assisted projects that use technology in innovative ways — for example, a computer

model A model is an informative representation of an object, person, or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin , . Models can be divided in ...

of the city that allows planners, architects, and community groups to visualize the effect of proposed projects before they are approved, and a website that will serve as a central source for information on public policy and civic life in New York.

Education

The education program has a focus of making the government more representative of, and more responsive to, its

citizen Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationality ...

s. Citizen organizations play a critical part in the

democratic system Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...

, monitoring government policy and reporting the results to the public. This helps the government to be more accountable to the citizens. Communications technology is focused on by the Foundation via television and the Internet. A part of the Communications program seeks

innovative Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed ent ...

uses of technology to communicate with citizens and encourage their participation. Public interest legal organizations are used in representation of individuals and strategies to improve law enforcement, thereby providing an important mediating link between citizens and the government. To attract talented people to public interest work, the Foundation has supported programs that place law students, especially

women A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...

and

minorities The term "minority group" has different meanings, depending on the context. According to common usage, it can be defined simply as a group in society with the least number of individuals, or less than half of a population. Usually a minority g ...

, in summer

internship An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used to practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and g ...

s at

nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

, legal aid, and government agencies.

Biomedical research

The program in biomedical research is devoted to strengthening basic research through support of programs at key institutions in New York City and in

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

, and to encouraging international cooperation in science in the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

. The Foundation funded

postdoctoral A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary acade ...

fellowship A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned or professional societies, the term refers ...

s at four New York biomedical research centers, beginning in the early 1980s. Aimed at young scientists, the fellowships enabled them to enter research careers instead of private practice or industry, which would otherwise seem more immediately lucrative. The programs also fund specific institutions and identify priorities for research. In 1987, the Foundation made a challenge grant that led to substantial government and private contributions, leading eventually to the 1993 establishment of the Israel Science Foundation (IS

to provide a steady source of funding. To further encourage innovation, the Foundation helped launch an initiative to support research in promising fields that are new or have been neglected in Israel.

Jewish Philanthropy and Education

The Jewish Philanthropy and Education program strives to increase knowledge and understanding of the Judaism, Jewish heritage using media, research, and leadership training. It endeavors to increase awareness of

Jewish history Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their Jewish peoplehood, nation, Judaism, religion, and Jewish culture, culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Jews originated from the Israelites and H ...

and culture and to build bridges between people of diverse backgrounds. A central aspect of this program is that

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

and

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

are powerful tools, and are used to educate children about history and engage viewers in novel ways. In this grant period, an

interfaith Interfaith (also called "interreligion") may refer to various ways of relating between beliefs, creeds, ideologies, faiths, or religions: * Interfaith conflict (disambiguation) * Interfaith dialogue, also known as interfaith cooperation * Interfai ...

video series featuring

Bill Moyers Bill Moyers (born Billy Don Moyers; June 5, 1934) is an American journalist and political commentator. Under the Johnson administration he served from 1965 to 1967 as the eleventh White House Press Secretary. He was a director of the Council ...

discoursing on the

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek language, Greek ; ; ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its incipit, first word, (In the beginning (phrase), 'In the beginning'). Genesis purpor ...

reached a large number of people.

(the Israeli version of

) also came out during this time and via this method. It was designed to teach Israeli and Palestinian youngsters about each other.

The Jewish Heritage Video Collection ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

. A portion of the program is devoted to projects that use telecommunications technology to create innovative educational resources. For example, Heritage: Civilization and the Jews has been issued as a
interactive DVD-ROM
and the internet is the location for a unique "virtual archive" on Jewish women. A new film uses the archive of videotaped Holocaust testimonies gathered by

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

to communicate the experience of the Holocaust. In Israel, the Foundation has directed its resources to critical issues, including a new initiative on the environment. It has continued to support graduate fellowships in Jewish studies. A final group of grants supported efforts to improve understanding between

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

s and Jews through conferences, theatrical productions, and

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

exhibitions.

Program themes

Following extensive discussions with leading thinkers in other foundations, academia, government, science, and the arts, the board also identified as priorities four themes that would be reflected across the above program areas: *the future of

, *the accountability of government, *the changing role of women, and *the impact of modern communications on education and other areas of life.

References

External links

Charles H. Revson Foundation
(website) {{Authority control Foundations based in the United States Revlon 1956 establishments in New York (state)