Bezos family gives $100 million gift to NYC for early childhood education

Leonard Greene, New York Daily News on May 12, 2026

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NEW YORK — A philanthropic group named for a mythical benefactor to the poor has launched a new anti-poverty campaign with a $100 million gift to New York City for preschool education.

Robin Hood, the city’s largest and most influential charity, announced that it had received the funds from the Bezos Family Foundation, a philanthropy created by the parents of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

The gift will establish the Jackie Bezos Endowment for Early Childhood at Robin Hood. The endowment includes a pledge of an additional $25 million, subject to a match, for a total of $150 million.

The endowment is named after the mother of the Amazon founder.

Jackie Bezos served on Robin Hood’s board of directors for 10 years, and was chairperson of its Early Childhood Committee, through which she helped shape the organization’s early childhood strategy, organizers said.

“My mother saw the innate potential in every child and never stopped working to ensure that potential was met,” Mark Bezos, a Robin Hood board member and Jeff Bezos’ brother, said in a statement.

“This gift honors her legacy and makes permanent the work she helped build at Robin Hood.”

The preschool education gift announcement kicked off Robin Hood’s annual benefit Monday night at Manhattan’s Javits Center, at which the organization launched a $1 billion endowment campaign to help fight poverty in New York City.

The gala featured performances by P!NK, The Lumineers and “Saturday Night Live” alumnus Pete Davidson, and raised roughly $73 million that will finance more than half of Robin Hood’s overall annual grantmaking budget, including emergency food, housing, education and job training.

Among the guests was Gov. Kathy Hochul. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has emphasized his commitment to early childhood education, did not attend.

To mark the occasion, several buildings that dot the city’s skyline were bathed in Robin Hood’s hunter green, including Bloomberg Tower, the New York Stock Exchange, Barclays Investment Bank and One World Trade Center,

“Robin Hood has become essential to the fabric of New York City,” Kenneth Tropin, chairman of Robin Hood’s board of directors, said in a statement.

“Since the beginning, we have stood with New Yorkers in their darkest hours — after 9/11, Superstorm Sandy and during COVID-19 — and in the quiet, daily work of building pathways out of poverty.”

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