OVERVIEW: The Carson Family Charitable Trust prioritizes education reform, hospitals, arts and culture, community development, and New York philanthropic organizations. The Carson family serves on many New York area boards.
IP TAKE: Despite it’s quiet approach, this funder makes big grants. It prefers a proactive funding approach, so interested grant seekers will need to partake in high-level networking to get noticed here. The foundation does not have a website, however, and provides no clear guidelines for grantseekers.
PROFILE: The Carson Family Charitable Trust was founded in 1990; Carson, his wife Judy, and children serve as trustees. Private equity advisor Russell L. Carson, a founding partner at Welsh, Carson, Anderson, and Stowe, has conducted philanthropy for decades. Russell Carson himself generated much of the funding for the Carson Family Charitable Trust, contributing $68.6 million to the fund on December 31, 2017.
Carson attended public high school in Toledo, Ohio before going to Dartmouth College and then Columbia Business School. The Carsons’ daughter Cecily is particularly active in civic life, and serves on such boards as the Robin Hood Foundation. Carson is the chair of the board of trustees of Rockefeller University, and on the board of overseers of Columbia Business School. Tax filings indicate that Carson invests in education, health, arts and culture, and community development.
Grants for Higher Education
Past education grantees include Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and Rockefeller University in New York City. Rockefeller University has received over $50 million over the years, and gifts to Dartmouth over the last decade total at least $25 million. The foundation also steadily supports Columbia Business School, where Carson got his M.B.A. In the past, Carson served as chairman of Columbia Business School and as a trustee of Dartmouth College, his two alma maters
Grants for K-12 Education
Carson prioritizes education reform. He is a cofounder of the Endowment Fund for Inner-City Education, now known as Partnership for Inner-City Education, a school management organization for a network of Catholic elementary schools in Harlem and the South Bronx. Carson believes in the charter school model and in improving Catholic schools. Around $1 million annually goes to Partnership for Inner-City Education. Support also goes to KIPP New York, Teach for America, Achievement First, a network of public charter schools in New York and other northeast states, and Friends of Bronx Charter School, among others.
Grants for Public Health and Access
The Carson Foundation also supports a wide range of established health organizations in New York City that can scale.
- Past health grantees include the New York Stem Cell Foundation, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, among others.
- Planned Parenthood of New York has received support.
- The New York Genome Center, where Carson serves as chair, received more funding from the Carson Family Charitable Trust than any other organization, with $7.1 million in grants received during 2017 alone and another $10 million in 2019.The New York Genome Center focuses on genome research to address neurodegenerative diseases and cancer, while participating in numerous stem cell research programs.
- A component of Carson’s philanthropy also involves rehabilitation, though a lot of this work isn’t just focused on New York City.
Grants for Arts and Culture
The foundation also funds New York arts and culture, including the Philharmonic-Symphony Society, the Met, the Museum of Art and Design, New York Public Library, and the American Museum of Natural History.
Grants for Community Development and Human Services
In addition, Carson is a strong supporter of the Robin Hood Foundation in New York. Carson granted it over $2 million in 2015. Other work in this area includes helping children and youth, with support going to the Harlem Children’s Zone and to the Red Hook Initiative in Brooklyn, which runs education and health programs for youth.
Other Grantmaking
Carson is right of center politically and gives to conservative policy organizations such as the Manhattan Institute in New York and the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C.
Important Grant Details
In a recent year, this funder made $49,087,118 in grants. It consistently has made over $40 million in grants in recent years.
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CONTACT:
The Carson Family Charitable Trust
114 W. 47th Street
New York, NY 10036
