OVERVIEW: The Adelson Family Foundation focuses its support on programs that benefit Israel and the Jewish people.
IP TAKE: The Massachusetts-based Adelson Family Foundation is one of three foundations with the same name. This is the foundation of the late Sheldon Adelson, and its giving prioritizes Israel and other Jewish causes. The Adelsons have also given hundreds of millions to conservative political campaigns. This funder does not accept proposals and is not particularly accessible to grantseekers. Beyond Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, the family’s philanthropy will live on through their four children and 11 grandchildren. It remains to be seen how much of Adelson’s fortune will ultimately go to philanthropy, or when
PROFILE: Established in 2007, the Adelson Family Foundation was founded by the late Sheldon and Dr. Miriam Adelson. The couple also founded a separate philanthropic entity, the Adelson Medical Research Foundation. Born in 1933, Sheldon Adelson grew up sleeping on the floor of a Boston tenement house and bought his first newspaper corner with a small loan from his uncle when he was 12 years old. He attended City College of New York but did not finish. In 1995, Adelson sold the Comdex tech conference for $862 million and then spent $1.5 billion building the Venetian hotel and casino in Las Vegas. Before his death in 2021, he was known as “Kingmaker” in political circles because of his money’s influence in advancing conservative causes, including supporting Donald Trump’s two presidential campaigns with almost $200 million in donations. Sheldon Adelson was identified as the largest individual donor to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Dr. Miriam Adelson is an Israeli-American physician who specializes in drug addiction and has continued her family’s interests in Israel and health.
The Adelson Family Foundation’s grantmaking is focused “primarily on programs that benefit the State of Israel and the Jewish people.” The foundation names areas of grantmaking interest including Holocaust and Antisemitism Awareness, Israel Advocacy, Israel Programs, Jewish and Zionist Identity and Education, Social Services and Health, and Welfare.
Grants for Jewish Causes
With only a few exceptions, the Adelson Family Foundation giving supports Jewish causes in the U.S. and Israel.
- The foundation funds several U.S.-based organizations that support causes in Israel. Grantees include the Jewish Agency for Israel, the Israeli-American Council, Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, Friends of Israel Scouts and Friends of United Hatzalah. The foundation has also supported
- U.S. Jewish grantees include the Birthright Israel Foundation, the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas’s Sigesmund Center, Girls Town Or Chadash of Brooklyn, the Chelsea Jewish Nursing Home in Massachusetts, Hebrew Senior Life of Boston and the Maccabee Task Force, which counters anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism on U.S. college campuses.
- The Adelsons also founded the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Educational Campus in Las Vegas, “the only school in Nevada built on the Jewish ethos of community, service, innovation and discourse.”
Grants for Public Health and Mental Health
In comparison with Adelson’s Jewish grantmaking, health and wellness are small areas of giving, with only a few grants supporting these causes each year. Past recipients include California’s Feeling Good Foundation, Florida’s Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Important Grant Details:
Adelson’s grants range from $1,200 to $30 million. The foundation’s largest grants going to zionist Israeli causes.
- Grantmaking tends to align with conservative causes and approaches to Israel and U.S.-Israel relations.
- Grantmaking to non-Jewish organizations is minimal.
- The foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals for funding.
- Contact this funder via email at questions@adelsonfoundation.org. The foundation’s phone number is listed as (781) 972-5950.
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