Jennifer Lopez
/SOURCE OF WEALTH: Singer, Actress
FUNDING AREAS: Health (Women & Children)
OVERVIEW: Jennifer Lopez and her younger sister, Lynda, co-founded the Lopez Family Foundation late last decade. The foundation seeks to increase the availability of quality health care and health education for women and children. The foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals, though it has a website with a contact portal.
BACKGROUND: Jennifer Lopez was born in 1969 in the Bronx. She danced on In Living Color before her starring role in the film Selena. Lopez turned to music and found major success on the pop and dance charts with hits like "Get Right," "If You Had My Love," and "Play." Her recent projects include Second Act and Hustlers.
ISSUES:
WOMEN'S AND CHILDREN'S HEALTH: The Lopez Family Foundation, co-founded by Jennifer Lopez and her younger sister, Lynda, "advocates and invests in policies and programs that make a positive, measurable impact on communities and makes quality healthcare and health education available for underserved mothers and their children." The mission of the foundation crystallized in 2008 when a health scare hit Lopez's family. As she told Variety in 2014, "Very early after my twins were born, my daughter (Emme) developed this bump on the back of her head... so I rushed to the hospital, and it was the middle of the night and the doctor met me there. And I had all these privileges, which wasn’t lost on me. I went back that night and thought, what if I didn’t have that? What if something was really wrong with her?”
Established in 2009, The Lopez Family Foundation opened its first telemedicine center in Puerto Rico in 2010 and also recently opened seven new centers in Panama. In 2014, the foundation announced the Center for a Healthy Childhood, in partnership with the Montefiore Medical Center, which promotes healthy eating, exercise and improve outcomes and access to care for women, children, and families in the Bronx. In 2015, meanwhile, Jennifer was honored to be chosen as the first-ever Global Advocate for Girls and Women at the United Nation Foundation.
In 2022, Lopez partnered with Grameen America, a nonprofit that provides access to capital, credit-building and financial education, to benefit Latina entrepreneurs with $14 billion in capital. Lopez’s role in the partnership is to serve as Grameen’s national ambassador and help mentor the microfinance organization’s network of more than 150,000 Latina-run small businesses in communities across the country.
PUERTO RICO: In the aftermath of Hurricane’s Irma and Maria in 2017, Lopez donated $1 million to recovery efforts in Puerto Rico, and hosted a concert and telethon, which raised over $35 million for disaster relief.
LOOKING FORWARD: Lopez, still in her early 50s and very much engaged in the entertainment business, has plenty of time left to further develop her philanthropy. For now, expect her to stay focused on health for women and children, and support for Puerto Rico. It is worth mentioning that apart from the Lopez Family Foundation, Lopez may have other more direct avenues of grantmaking, and some important grants may be missing from this rundown.
