Connie Duckworth and Thomas Kadrovach

SOURCE OF WEALTH: Goldman Sachs

FUNDING AREAS: Global Development & Gender Equity, Health, Education & Youth

OVERVIEW: Connie Duckworth and Thomas Kadrovach established the Kadrovach/Duckworth Family Foundation, which supports global development, gender equity, health and education. According to available tax filings, the foundation awarded just over $2 million in grants from 2017 to 2018. After retiring from Goldman Sachs, Connie Duckworth started the Arzu Studio Hope, which employs and empowers rural women in Afghanistan.

BACKGROUND: Connie K. Duckworth received a B.A. from University of Texas and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In 1979, she joined the Los Angeles-based energy giant Arco. She then moved to Goldman Sachs, where she managed institutional fixed-income accounts at the firm’s Los Angeles office. Duckworth later moved to the firm’s New York operations and helped build Goldman’s bond department, eventually becoming the company’s first female sales and trading partner. Duckworth retired from Goldman in 2001. She and her husband Thomas Kadrovach, who also worked at Goldman Sachs, are based in the Chicago area. 

ISSUES:

GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT & GENDER EQUITY: Duckworth’s work on the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council in the early 2000s inspired her philanthropic commitment to global development and gender equity. In 2004, she established the Arzu Studio Hope, a nonprofit enterprise that employs hundreds of poor rural women weavers in Afghanistan and supports their communities with basic healthcare, education and other services. Through their foundation, Duckworth and Kadrovach have also supported the America India Foundation, which aims to accelerate social and economic change in India.

HEALTH: Duckworth and Kadrovach have supported health broadly. Kadrovach has served as vice president of the University of Chicago Cancer Research Foundation and a trustee of the University of Chicago Medical Center. The couple has also supported the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the Steadman Philippon Research Institute and Chicago’s Northshore University Healthsystem, where they endowed a professorship in cancer research.

EDUCATION & YOUTH: The couple’s education philanthropy has prioritized their and their children’s alma maters and the greater Chicago area. Past higher education grantees include the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Texas at Austin and Claremont McKenna College. K-12 grantees have included Lake Forest Academy, the Academy for Urban School Leadership and Invest for Kids, which brings investment professionals together in an effort to support high impact nonprofits serving underprivileged children in Chicago.

LOOKING FORWARD: Duckworth will likely stay involved with Arzu Studio Hope for many years to come. Much of the couple’s philanthropy is expected to stay in the greater Chicago area in the coming years.

CONTACT:

Kadrovach/Duckworth Family Foundation does not provide a clear avenue of contact, but below is an address:

Kadrovach/Duckworth Family Foundation
77 Water St., 9th Fl.
New York City, NY 10005

LINKS:

Arzu Studio Hope