(May 9, 2018, New York) —The Children’s Scholarship Fund (CSF), a national K-8 privately funded scholarship organization, will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a gala on Tuesday, May 15th in New York City. The event will honor prominent philanthropists and business leaders Eli Broad and Julian Robertson as CSF’s 2018 Champions for Children. Since its launch in 1998, CSF and its partner programs nationwide have awarded scholarships worth $741 million to more than 166,000 children.
The Children’s Scholarship Fund was founded by the late Ted Forstmann and John Walton who said at the time, “We’re trying to give low-income parents an equal opportunity to get a good education for their kids—whether that education comes from a public school, a parochial school, a charter school, or a private school. We must give parents the ability to seek a good education wherever they can find it. Nothing is more important to the future of our nation than education.”
Over the last two decades, CSF scholarship alumni have gone on to study at Princeton University, NYU, Fordham, and many other universities, colleges, and vocational schools. They are now pursuing jobs in fields as diverse as business and finance, law, advertising, computer science, and the arts. One of those recipients is pre-med major Maria Javier, who said, “If I didn’t have the scholarship that I received in third grade, I wouldn’t be at Columbia University pursuing my dreams and potentially changing the world, as I am right now.”
In acknowledging the success of the organization, Darla M. Romfo, President and COO of Children’s Scholarship Fund, said, “What Ted Forstmann and John Walton began two decades ago has given thousands of individual children the opportunity to fulfill their human potential. We are tremendously proud to honor Eli Broad and Julian Robertson and to celebrate the many children and families who have been helped.”
Eli Broad and Julian Robertson were two of the original visionaries who joined Forstmann and Walton when CSF was founded, and they have continued their efforts to ensure that children across America have access to a quality education. CSF’s Champion for Children award is given annually to leaders who embody CSF’s mission of maximizing educational opportunity for all children. This year’s awards will be presented by CSF Advisory Board Member Stedman Graham and CSF alumni who have benefited from their generosity.
Now entering its third decade of operation, CSF’s reputation for excellence in providing educational opportunity to thousands of children across the country is reflected in numbers such as their success in New York, where 95.5 percent of CSF New York alumni graduated high school on time in 2017, compared to the 2017 New York City public school graduation rate of 74.3 percent. A recent study by Stanford’s Dr. Eric Bettinger found CSF alumni also enroll in college and earn degrees at much higher rates than low-income students nationally.
CSF’s 20th Anniversary Gala will feature current CSF Scholars and alumni who have gone on to continue their education and launch their careers. Students from Sacred Heart School and The Learning Tree Cultural Preparatory School, both in the Bronx, will perform at the gala.
About CSF Honorees:
- Eli Broad is a renowned business leader who is the only person to have built two Fortune 500 companies in two different industries from the ground up. Over his six-decade career in business, he founded and grew both SunAmerica Inc. and KB Home (formerly Kaufman and Broad Home Corporation). Today, Mr. Broad and his wife, Edythe, are devoted to philanthropy as founders of The Broad Foundations, which they established to advance entrepreneurship for the public good in education, science and the arts. Over the course of their lives, the Broads have donated more than $4 billion. Broad joined Ted Forstmann and John Walton as a member of CSF’s inaugural advisory board to help launch the Children’s Scholarship Fund and its Los Angeles partner program. In its first year, the parents of more than 54,000 children applied for 3,750 CSF scholarships awarded in Los Angeles.
- Julian Robertson is an investor, environmentalist, and philanthropist. Co-founding Tiger Management LLC in 1980 from an initial capital base of $8 million, Mr. Robertson built Tiger into one of the world’s largest hedge funds with capital of more than $23 billion. Robertson also trained and developed a generation of “Tiger Cubs,” a cadre of analysts and portfolio managers, who have become some of today’s most successful hedge fund managers. Today Tiger Management seeds independent hedge funds run by high-achieving young managers. In 1996, Mr. Robertson and his wife, Josie, founded the Robertson Foundation to focus on large scale, domestic, high impact grants in education, the environment, and medical research. Mr. Robertson was a member of CSF’s inaugural advisory board and launched CSF’s Charlotte, NC partner program. Since that time, CSF-Charlotte has invested in excess of $10 million in an estimated 7,500 scholarships for economically disadvantaged children in Mecklenburg County.
About Children’s Scholarship Fund:
Founded in 1998 by Ted Forstmann and John Walton, CSF provides partial scholarships to low-income families so their children can attend the private K-8 schools that best meet their needs. Since its inception, CSF and its partner programs have awarded scholarships worth $741 million to 166,000 children nationwide. This school year, more than 25,700 students nationwide are using CSF and CSF partner scholarships, including more than 8,000 children attending 276 schools in New York City. For more information, visit www.scholarshipfund.org.
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