R and S Cohen Foundation

R and S Cohen Foundation

Sir Ronald and Lady Sharon Harel-Cohen established the R and S Cohen Foundation in 1999 as a UK-registered charitable vehicle. Sir Ronald's wealth originated from Apax Partners, the private equity and venture capital firm he co-founded in 1972, which grew into one of Europe's largest buyout and growth investors. Lady Sharon is a film producer whose credits include works that bridged British and Israeli cinema. The foundation reflects both their interests, directing grants toward educational advancement, the relief of poverty and distress, and the promotion of the arts for public benefit. Unlike a typical family office deploying capital for financial return, the foundation operates as a pure grantmaker. Its charitable footprint spans education — Sir Ronald has long advocated for social investment bonds and outcomes-based funding models — as well as direct assistance to individuals in need and support for arts organizations. Sir Ronald's parallel vehicles, including the Portland Trust and the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment, extend his influence into social finance policy in Israel, the Palestinian territories, and the G7, but the R and S Cohen Foundation itself remains a focused philanthropic entity rather than a program-related investment or venture philanthropy shop. The foundation is governed by family trustees including Jonathan and Tamara Jennifer Harel-Cohen, the couple's children, suggesting a tight family-held governance structure rather than a professionalized institutional board. Sir Ronald's stature in policy circles — he chaired the G8 Social Impact Investment Taskforce and remains a prominent figure in UK and Israeli social finance — means the foundation punches above its weight in convening authority even if its grantmaking scale is modest. The family's residential holdings in London, New York, Cannes, and Tel Aviv indicate a substantial asset base, but the foundation's corpus is deliberately separated from the family's private wealth. What distinguishes the R and S Cohen Foundation structurally is the founder's role as an architect of global impact-investing infrastructure without the foundation itself being an impact-investment vehicle. Sir Ronald writes books about social finance, chairs the Global Steering Group, and influences government policy, while the foundation continues as a conventional grantmaker. This separation — policy leadership running parallel to a straightforward charitable structure — places the Cohens in a unique category: a family whose philanthropic vehicle is arguably less innovative than the founder's external advocacy for innovation in philanthropy itself.