# Neubauer Family Foundation

Neubauer Family Foundation is an Endowment / Foundation based in Philadelphia, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Endowment / Foundation
- **Headquarters:** Philadelphia, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** Philadelphia, PA, United States
- **Founded:** 1998
- **Assets under management:** Less than $100M (Altss estimate)
- **Website:** neubauerfamilyfoundation.org
- **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/neubauer-family-foundation

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

Joseph and Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer established the Neubauer Family Foundation in 1998, anchoring it to the wealth created through Aramark's decades-long rise. Joseph Neubauer served as Aramark's CEO from 1983 to 2012, orchestrating a $6.3B leveraged buyout in 2007 and later taking the company public. The foundation draws its resources directly from that corporate liquidity event, with Joseph's corporate governance experience shaping an institutionally rigorous, low-profile grant-making operation. Unlike family offices that blend mission-related investing with concessionary philanthropy, the foundation maintains a clean structural separation. Its primary vehicle is programmatic grant-making rather than direct venture investment or fund commitments. The portfolio concentrates on urban K-12 school district transformation through the Neubauer Fellows Program, which identifies and supports high-potential principals and school administrators in Philadelphia. Additional capital flows to Jewish educational and cultural organizations, reflecting Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer's long-standing communal involvement. The foundation does not publicly solicit proposals, sourcing educational partners through a curated network of district relationships. The foundation operates with a lean internal team from its Philadelphia headquarters, leveraging external advisory relationships for program evaluation rather than building a large in-house staff. While total assets remain undisclosed, IRS filings reflect a grant-making pace consistent with a foundation capitalized well below the mega-foundation tier. A distinct structural feature is the foundation's willingness to make multi-year, unrestricted operating grants to leadership-development nonprofits — a posture that mirrors Joseph Neubauer's private-sector emphasis on management quality as the primary driver of institutional performance. What distinguishes the foundation structurally is its surgical concentration on principal-quality interventions within a single public school ecosystem. Rather than funding charter networks or scholarship programs, the Neubauer Family Foundation underwrites the human capital pipeline for Philadelphia's existing district schools, betting that a superior principal corps will lift system-wide outcomes. This narrow aperture — one city, one leverage point, one rigorously defined fellowship model — makes it an outlier among education funders who typically diversify across geographies, institution types, and intervention strategies.

## Sectors

- Education
- Enterprise Software
- Healthcare Services

## People

- Joseph Neubauer — Founder
- Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer — Founder

## Questions

### Who makes grant-making decisions at the Neubauer Family Foundation?

Joseph and Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer retain close involvement in grant decisions, operating without a large professional staff. The foundation evaluates educational partners through direct relationship networks rather than open calls for proposals, reflecting Joseph Neubauer's private-sector preference for curated, high-trust partnerships over broad RFPs.

### How is the foundation's education strategy structured?

The foundation concentrates on principal development through the Neubauer Fellows Program, which provides leadership training and unrestricted funding to high-potential Philadelphia school administrators. This represents a bet on human capital quality — specifically, the proposition that effective principals are the single highest-leverage intervention in urban K-12 systems.

### How is the Neubauer Family Foundation related to Aramark?

The foundation's endowment derives from Joseph Neubauer's nearly three decades as Aramark's CEO and chairman. He led the company through its 2007 leveraged buyout with a consortium including Goldman Sachs and Thomas H. Lee Partners, and later its 2013 return to the public markets. The foundation does not maintain an ownership stake in or governance role over Aramark.

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Last updated: 2026-06-03T20:00:00.000Z

Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/neubauer-family-foundation

Maintained by Altss — https://altss.com — methodology: https://altss.com/methodology