Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity

Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity was established in 1986 by Elie Wiesel and his wife, Marion, using the Nobel Peace Prize award he received that year. The foundation operates as a New York-based endowment dedicated to perpetuating Wiesel's legacy of combating indifference and intolerance. It funds programs focused on youth education, ethical leadership, and international dialogue rather than making grants to external organizations. The foundation's principal program is the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics Essay Contest, which awards scholarships to U.S. college juniors and seniors who submit essays on ethical issues. It also convenes the Elie Wiesel Foundation Beit Tzipora Centers for Study and Enrichment in Israel, which provide educational support for Ethiopian-Israeli children. The foundation's investment portfolio, based in New York, supports these operational programs rather than venture or private equity commitments, functioning more like a traditional endowed foundation than a family office. Elisha Wiesel, who spent 25 years at Goldman Sachs and served as the firm's chief information officer, became chairman of the board after his father's death in 2016. Marion Wiesel, the late author and translator, remained actively involved as vice president. Board member Lisa Opoku, a former Goldman managing director, represents the foundation's ties to the financial services community that helps steward its endowment. In September 2022, the foundation partnered with the National September 11 Memorial & Museum to host an annual lecture series on ethics and memory. The foundation's structural identity is shaped by its origin in a Nobel laureate's personal award money — Elie Wiesel donated the entirety of his $982,000 prize to create the endowment. This makes it a founder-created philanthropic entity rather than a wealth-management vehicle, with no private equity portfolio and no co-investment activity. Its intellectual capital, housed in the Wiesel Collection at the Florida Holocaust Museum, functions as a parallel, non-financial asset that extends the foundation's mission beyond grantmaking.