Isaac and Laura Perlmutter

SOURCE OF WEALTH: Marvel Comics 

FUNDING AREAS: Health, Jewish Causes, Arts & Culture, Human Services

OVERVIEW: Isaac Perlmutter and his wife Laura move their philanthropy through the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Foundation, which gave away around $1.6 million in a recent year. The Perlmutters prioritize health causes and have given tens of millions to NYU Medical Center. They also support the Jewish community.

BACKGROUND: Isaac Perlmutter immigrated to the U.S. from Israel with just $250 in 1967 and sold toys on the streets of Brooklyn. Perlmutter’s company, Toy Biz, helped to rescue Marvel from bankruptcy back in the mid-1990s. In 2009, he sold a majority of Marvel to Disney for $4 billion in cash and stock.

ISSUES:

HEALTH: Perlmutter and Laura both sit on the board of NYU Langone Medical Center. Laura has served as a board trustee for NYU Medical Center since 1993, when the family established the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Professorship and Chair in Cell Biology at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine. Earlier this decade, meanwhile, the Perlmutters donated $9 million as part of a grant to fund cancer research at NYU Langone Medical Center and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The Perlmutters have donated more than $70 million to NYU over the decades.

Other grantees have included Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Susan G. Komen, HOW Hearing The Ovarian Cancer Whisper, Eric Trump Foundation, and Bruce and Marsha Moskowitz Foundation, which "provides grants to qualified organizations that improve patient safety and the quality of healthcare." Palm Beach-based Perlmutter is friends with President Trump and has advised him on veteran’s healthcare. Bruce Moskowitz, a prominent doctor in Palm Beach, also has ties to Trump.

JEWISH CAUSES: Apart from the Perlmutters' support of American Technion Society, they've also supported places like American Friends of Hebrew University, Palm Beach Synagogue, Holocaust Education and Resource Center, and Jewish Agency for Israel.

OTHER: The Perlmutters have been steady supporters of United Way in Palm Beach. They have also supported Norton Museum of Art and Innocence Project.

LOOKING FORWARD: Expect the Perlmutters to stick with their select interest areas.

CONTACT:

Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Foundation Inc.
PO Box 1028
Lake Worth, FL 33460