Rosenkranz Foundation

OVERVIEW: The Rosenkranz Foundation supports conservative public policy, education and the arts. New York City is a geographic priority.

IP TAKE: This Rosenkranz Foundation tends to stick with a few very specific areas of interest. Policy grantmaking leans right, and education funding favors Yale, its founder’s alma mater. Meanwhile, a significant portion o f its arts funding supports Asian art acquisitions and publications. Aside from a few established relationships, the foundation appears to favor project-based support. Rosenkranz does not accept applications, so it will be difficult to gain the foundation’s attention without a connection to the family.

PROFILE: The Rosenkranz Foundation was established in 1985 by Wall Street financier Robert Rosenkranz, CEO of Delphi Financial Group. He began his career as a tax attorney at Cahill, Gordon & Reindel and worked as an economist at the RAND Corporation. He then joined Oppenheimer & Co., where he advanced to the position of general partner before forming his own private equity firm, Rosenkranz & Company. In 1987, his firm acquired Delphi Financial Group. Delphi was sold to Tokio Marine Group in 2012, and Rosenkranz continues to serve as its chief executive officer.

The foundation’s mission is to support “the highest levels of achievement and innovation in public policy, higher education and the arts” and promote “fresh and effective intellectual perspectives.” Its primary areas of interest are Public Policy, Higher Education and the Arts. Grantmaking is national in scope but prioritizes New York City.

Grants for Civic Engagement and Democracy

The Rosenkranz Foundation carries out its grantmaking for democracy-related efforts through its Public Policy interest area. Although it does not name specific grantmaking goals for its work in this area, many of is policy grants skew toward the right politically. Notable among these is the Translation Project, which aims to translate seminal texts by authors like Adam Smith, Voltaire, Milton, Locke, and Spinoza into Arabic and Farsi for distribution in the Middle East. Robert Rosenkranz helped to establish Open to Debate, formerly called Intelligence Squared, a debate series distributed through NPR and PBS, and several policy-related publications. The production receives ongoing support from the foundation.

Other policy grantees include the American Enterprise Institute; the Cato Institute, where Robert Rosenkranz’s son, Nicholas, is a senior fellow; the Policy Exchange in London; and the Manhattan Institute, where Rosenkranz’s serves on the board of trustees and where his daughter, Stephanie, is a fellow.

Grants for Education

The foundation’s Higher Education grantmaking supports several education initiatives, primarily at Yale University, the founder’s alma mater. The foundation provides ongoing support to the the Rosenkranz Writer-In-Residence Program at Yale University, which brings “prominent authors, critics, playwrights, journalists, screenwriters, essayists and social commentators to Yale on a temporary residential basis.” Another Yale-based initiative is the Yale Quantitative Reasoning & Science Education Project, through which the foundation has supported the creation of 20 new courses, and provided “pedagogic support for the faculty members interested in creating them.” Rosenkranz also funded the construction of Rosenkranz Hall, the home of Yale’s international relations department.

Apart from Yale, higher education funding has gone to New York Law School, Harvard University and Columbia University.

A handful of grants have supported K-12 schools and college readiness initiatives. Ongoing funding supports the Rosenkranz Shakespeare Fund at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. And in New York City, the foundation has made grants to the Browning School, the Chapin School and Prep for Prep, which helps children of color gain entry to private schools.

Grants for Arts and Culture

Rosenkranz’s funding for the Arts does not name specific priorities but appears to focus on Asian art. Robert Rosenkranz’s wife, Alexandra Munroe, is an Asian art curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation. The foundation’s engagement with Asian art projects includes the donation of Chinese paintings to the Harvard University Art Museums and support for a book series, The Culture & Civilization of China, published by Yale University Press. The foundation has also provided support to the Asia Society in New York City.

Other arts and culture grantees include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, the Central Park Conservancy, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Museum of Modern Art, all based in New York City. At New York’s Whitney Museum, the foundation provided major funding for Dreamlands, an exhibit of immersive cinema that ran in 2016.

Elsewhere in the U.S., Rosenkranz’s arts funding has gone to organizations including the Music Associates of Aspen and the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado.

Grants for Public Health and Diseases

Although the foundation does not name health as an area of giving, a significant number of grants have supported hospitals and disease research initiatives. Grantees include the New York-Presbyterian Hospital system, the Prostate Cancer Foundation, Massachusetts General Hospital and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.

Important Grant Details:

The Rosenkranz Foundation’s grants mostly range from $1,000 to $360,000.

  • Grantmaking is national in scope but prioritizes New York City.

  • With the exception of a few organizations that receive ongoing support, this funder tends to provide project-based grants.

  • Grantmaking for public policy is right-leaning.

  • This funder tends to support organizations and projects with which family members have personal interest.

  • The Rosenkranz Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals for funding.

  • See a list of organizations and programs supported by the foundation here.

Submit general inquiries to the foundation via email at info@rosenkranzfdn.org or telephone at 212-838-7000.

PEOPLE: 

Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).

LINKS: