Joan and Sanford Weill
Year
Affiliation
Areas of Focus
Peace Building | Health | Education
The more we can do to create a better society, that benefits more people, the better chance we have that our society will continue to grow and prosper.
Joan and Sanford Weill are honored today for their remarkable philanthropic contributions to medicine, education, and the arts. They have donated many hundreds of millions of dollars that have helped to heal suffering patients, teach knowledge-hungry students and transmit music to generations of grateful music lovers. Their largesse has helped revitalize esteemed institutions including New York’s Carnegie Hall, a member of our own Carnegie family, as well as the Weill Cornell Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences and the Weill Bugando Medical Complex in Tanzania, which proudly bear their name.
Joan Weill is an indefatigable supporter of cultural, civic and philanthropic endeavors. Her generosity, along with her distinguished record of service, has benefitted a host of institutions, including the Alvin Ailey American Dance Foundation and Citymeals-on-Wheel, to name but two.
Sanford Weill has drawn on his vast experience as a leader in our country’s financial sectors to launch such impressive initiatives as a joint public-private sector partnership with the New York City Board of Education that established the Academy of Finance to prepare high school students for careers in financial services. He is the founder and chairman of the National Academy Foundation, which oversees more than 500 career-themed academies.
But that is not all. According to a recent issue of BusinessWeek, Weill giving has totaled more than $800 million. Their generosity, along with their distinguished record of service, has benefitted numerous organizations including Sidra, a teaching hospital to be completed in 2011 in Qatar; New York Presbyterian Hospital and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
If Andrew Carnegie were alive today, he would thank Joan and Sanford Weill for their imaginative giving, a testament to the fact that we cannot take our wealth with us because shrouds have no pockets.
