3 Family Offices Contributing to Nonprofit Organizations

In utilizing the FINTRX family office data and research platform, which provides intel into thousands of direct deal transactions made by 3,090+ family offices worldwide, we explore three family offices contributing to nonprofit organizations and other mission-aligned companies around the world.

1. Pierre Omidyar Single Family Office (Pierre Omidyar Family Office)

Established in 2004, Pierre Omidyar Single Family Office is a Redwood City, California-based single-family office with additional offices throughout Asia, Europe, and Africa. The group invests the capital of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. Pierre Omidyar is both an investment firm and a 501(c)(3) organization, making investments and grants. The firm invests in both public and private equity across a range of sectors, regions, and asset classes globally, with a disruptive mindset and social impact focus. Omidyar has two primary investment initiatives: Access to Capital; and Media, Markets, and Transparency. These initiatives operate under the firm's principles of individual access, connection, and ownership.

Pierre Omidyar will invest in seed capital and all stages of venture capital, as well as public and private equity, and hedge funds. For its investment criteria, Omidyar seeks opportunities that align with its values and principles, opportunities for impact, the potential for scale, and innovative leadership teams. Omidyar will invest in a variety of sectors and has a particular interest in emerging and disruptive technologies; education; emerging finance and financial inclusion; nonprofit and citizenship initiatives.

In February 2006, Pierre Omidyar made an angel investment in Hopelab, a social innovation lab committed to supporting and improving the health and happiness of young people through the creation and distribution of behavior-change tech. In November 2009, Omidyar invested in Global Integrity, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit company founded in 2005. Global Integrity supports progress toward open and accountable governance in countries and communities around the world. 

From July 2010 to March 2012, Pierre Omidyar provided grants to the following nonprofit organizations: Global Voices, an international, multilingual, volunteer community of writers, translators, academics, and human rights activists leveraging the power of the internet to build understanding across borders; Sunlight Foundation, a national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that uses civic technologies, open data, policy analysis, and journalism to make our government and politics more accountable and transparent to all; and Akshara Foundation, a Bangalore-based Public Charitable Trust with the mission to ensure all children are in school. Established in the year 2000, Akshara Foundation has a range of programs that provide multiple solutions for universalizing elementary education. 

In May 2013, Pierre Omidyar made a $15M Series B investment in Change.org, the world’s largest social change platform with over 225M users in 196 countries. Change.org makes it possible for anyone to start a campaign and mobilize hundreds of others locally (or hundreds of thousands around the world) making governments and companies more responsive and accountable. Other portfolio companies include Common Sense Media, Amicus, Code For Africa, Crisis Text Line, Hypothes.Is, GiveIndia, and Youth Noise. Omidyar seeks market-based approaches with the potential for large-scale impact and the ability to be change agents.

The group's investment approach also transcends the boundaries of typical investors or philanthropic organizations, providing capital for grants besides its investing activities. Omidyar takes a long-term approach to its investments and will invest globally, in both developing countries and in the developed world.

2. Helmsley Trust Family Office (Helmsley Family Office)

Founded in 2008, Helmsley Trust Family Office (Helmsley Family Office) is a New York, NY-based single-family office managing the assets of the Helmsley family. They produced most of their wealth via real estate investments. Helmsley Family Office is most active in hedge funds, direct investments, and private equity. The office is open to investing in both public and private equity across a range of regions and asset classes, keeping approximately 80% of their assets in alternatives. Sectors of interest include technology, healthcare & biotech, education, and hospitality. The group also takes an interest in the commodity sector.

Helmsley Trust is an active investor in the private equity asset class they invest in natural resources, venture, and secondary vehicles that target US-based opportunities focusing on clean technology and energy industries. They allocate around 16.4% of their total assets under management to hedge funds and usually hold 12 hedge fund investments within their portfolio. Helmsley Trust gives 5% to charity each year, keeping 5% in reserve at all times. 

Helmsley Family Office supports nonprofits and other mission-aligned organizations throughout the U.S. and worldwide in selected place-based initiatives, education, and human services. For instance, in December 2018, Helmsley Family Office granted $6M to Tidepool, a San Francisco, California-based organization founded by people with diabetes, caregivers, and healthcare providers committed to helping those with insulin-requiring diabetes safely achieve great outcomes through accessible diabetes data. Tidepool harnesses the power of technology to provide intuitive software products that help people with diabetes.

3. Rockefeller Brothers Fund (Rockefeller Family Office; RBF)

Created by the sons of John D. Rockefeller in 1940, Rockefeller Brothers Fund (Rockefeller Family Office) is a New York-based single-family office managing the capital of the Rockefeller family. Rockefeller Brothers Fund is a private, family foundation helping to advance social change for a more sustainable world. The firm invests in both private and public equity across a range of regions and asset classes. Sectors of interest include nonprofits, business services, education, leisure, and lifestyle. RBF seeks sustainable development, security, cultural diversity, and ecological integrity. In addition, it fosters partnerships among government, business, and civil society.

Rockefeller Family Office deploys funds to market-grade investments in primary capital, including private equity, debt, and real assets (such as real estate and infrastructure) with a measurable impact that furthers its mission to advance social change. RBF will invest in private equity groups, raising their first fund as part of its allocation strategy. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund invests in hedge funds opportunistically, and into single manager funds. Some strategies used in the past include long and short equity, event-driven, and arbitrage funds. RBF targets an annualized return of +6% against CPI. Its long-term investment aim is to preserve the real value of the endowment.

In April 2021, RBF granted $1M to The American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest learned societies and independent policy research centers. Through studies, publications, and programs on the Humanities, Arts, and Education; Science, Engineering, and Technology; Global Security and International Affairs; and American Institutions and the Public Good, the Academy provides authoritative and nonpartisan policy advice to decision-makers in government, academia, and the private sector.

Three months later, Rockefeller Family Office directly invested in the Center for Technology and Civic Life, a Chicago, IL-based civic and social organization working to foster a more informed and engaged democracy, as well as helping to modernize U.S. elections. Its founders joined forces in 2012 to get more Americans civically engaged. 

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