Who We Are
A legacy of caring. A commitment to community.
Our Work
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation provides grants to nonprofits in the United States and Israel that help people achieve economic stability and well-being. Collaborating closely with both the Jewish and general community, we invest in organizations that equip people to secure safe and affordable housing; lead healthy lives; obtain and keep good jobs; engage in high-quality educational and developmental opportunities; and, later in life, remain independent and age with dignity.
We support capital projects — such as facilities, technology, and other organizational infrastructure — as well as programs and general operations. At the same time, we build partnerships across regions and sectors to address complex challenges; ensure nonprofit and local leaders have the tools, skills, and resources to serve their community; and promote promising practices and approaches for expansion on a broader scale. These efforts and grants primarily focus on places with ties to the lives and legacies of Harry and Jeanette Weinberg.
We ground our work in the expertise and experience of our community partners, recognizing their insights lead to the most effective solutions.
Learn about our commitment to the Jewish community.
Our Values and Guiding Principles
Our mission and work are grounded in core Jewish beliefs and teachings. The Torah states “there shall be no needy among you,” calling for open hearts and hands toward our fellow human beings who experience hardship. Jewish texts also emphasize the value of kavod (כבוד) — honor, respect, and dignity — and describe an honorable person as one who honors all others.
This appreciation for the dignity of every person guides our efforts to fight poverty and build strong, vibrant communities. While we know creating a world with no needy among us is achingly hard to achieve, we persist in the firm belief that “it is not upon you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it” (Pirkei Avot 2:16).
These values are at the root of our guiding principles:
Care
We bring our hearts to this work and strive to listen and communicate with compassion. With our partners, communities, and one another, we aim for respect, fairness, and transparency.
Collaboration
Commitment
We take on some of the toughest, most intractable problems and persist in contributing until we see meaningful results. We follow through and hold ourselves accountable for stewarding our resources effectively.
Community
We walk alongside our colleagues and partners, ready to offer support, celebrate wins, and navigate big and small challenges together. We build bridges to foster understanding and appreciation for our shared humanity and values.
Curiosity
We are constantly learning, sharing what we discover and inviting others to join us on the journey. We strive to be flexible, innovative, and open to new ideas — and to challenge ourselves and our assumptions with humility.
Our History
Like most immigrants coming to the United States in the early 1900s, Harry Weinberg’s family arrived with little more than hope and a willingness to work hard. Beyond their many challenges, Harry and his wife, Jeanette, saw opportunity.
Harry was gifted with a keen business mind and entrepreneurial spirit. Despite leaving school at age 12, he built a career that turned one successful investment into another, often seeing value where others did not. In the 1950s and 1960s, he owned bus lines in several cities, including Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Again seeing opportunity, and before many others recognized the eventual value of real estate in Hawai‘i, Harry began purchasing properties throughout the islands. He was the largest single real estate investor in Hawai‘i at the time of his death.
But Harry never forgot his humble roots. In 1959, he created The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation to help meet the needs of low-income people. The Foundation as we know it today has existed since 1990, when Harry died — one year after his wife passed away. Today, the fortune that Harry amassed has grown to $3.1 billion. Those funds support our efforts to carry forward his legacy through our grantmaking to fight poverty and build strong, vibrant communities in the United States and Israel.
There are eight levels of charity. The highest is helping a man to help himself.
שמונה דרגות לצדקה יש והרמה העליונה היא לעזור לזולת להגיע לעצמאות.
– Maimonides