# The Tracking Foundation

The Tracking Foundation is an Endowment / Foundation based in New York, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Endowment / Foundation
- **Headquarters:** New York, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** New York, NY, United States
- **Founded:** 2016
- **Assets under management:** Approximately $159M (Altss estimate)
- **Website:** thetrackingfoundation.org

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

The Tracking Foundation was established in 2016 by Stephen Feinberg, the co-founder and CEO of Cerberus Capital Management. The foundation operates as a private charitable vehicle funded by wealth Feinberg generated in private equity, specifically through Cerberus's multi-strategy platform known for distressed asset investing. The foundation's board includes Feinberg's wife, Director Gisela Feinberg, and Alan S. Waldenberg, a partner at Schulte Roth & Zabel, who serves as Treasurer and Secretary, reflecting a governance structure tightly wrapped around family and long-standing legal advisors. The foundation's investment strategy departs from traditional endowment models that diversify across public equities and fixed income. Instead, it concentrates its corpus in Cerberus-managed vehicles, including the Cerberus Global NPL Feeder Fund, L.P. — a fund focused on non-performing loan portfolios. This alignment gives Cerberus sticky fee-paying capital while keeping the foundation's return engine coupled to the firm's buyout and distressed credit operations. Grantmaking, however, remains the operational focus, with disbursements directed toward educational access programs rather than building a diversified institutional portfolio. The foundation operates from New York and has not disclosed a dedicated investment team separate from Cerberus personnel. Stephen Feinberg's broader network — including memberships in the Business Roundtable and the Council on Foreign Relations — connects the foundation's social capital to elite policy and corporate circles, though no evidence suggests these affiliations directly drive grantmaking decisions. The Tracking Foundation's structural differentiator is a model where a charitable entity's corpus is almost entirely recycled into the wealth creator's own fund complex. This is unusual even among private equity-founded foundations, which typically diversify away from concentrated exposure to the founder's firm. The arrangement effectively turns charitable assets into permanent capital for Cerberus vehicles while satisfying distribution requirements through grantmaking funded by those very investments. Who controls allocation decisions between Cerberus funds and any outside investments remains opaque, as the foundation does not publish meeting minutes or an investment policy statement.

## Sectors

- Education
- Private Equity

## People

- Stephen A. Feinberg — Founder
- Gisela Feinberg — Director
- Alan S. Waldenberg — Treasurer, Secretary, and Director

## Questions

### What is the relationship between Stephen Feinberg's private equity firm and the foundation?

Stephen Feinberg co-founded Cerberus Capital Management in 1992 and remains its CEO. The Tracking Foundation was established 24 years later with wealth generated from that enterprise. The foundation invests in Cerberus funds, and Cerberus personnel, including Managing Director Greg Nixon, participate in foundation-related events. Alan Waldenberg, a partner at Schulte Roth & Zabel — a firm with deep ties to Cerberus — serves as the foundation's Treasurer and Secretary.

### How does the foundation's governance handle conflicts of interest given its Cerberus investments?

The board includes Stephen Feinberg and his wife Gisela, alongside attorney Alan Waldenberg. As a private foundation, it must comply with IRS self-dealing rules under Section 4941, which generally prohibit transactions between the foundation and its founders. Whether the concentration in Cerberus funds has been structured to satisfy these requirements is a matter of legal structuring, but public filings do not detail the specific conflict-of-interest policies in place.

### How does The Tracking Foundation compare in size to other private-equity-founded foundations?

At an estimated $159 million in assets, the foundation is modest compared to entities like the Blackstone Charitable Foundation or the KKR-sponsored foundations. It reflects a more personal-scale philanthropic vehicle typical of a founder's early-stage giving, before any potential scaling or institutionalization of the charitable effort occurs.

## Related profiles

- [Sturm Family Foundation](https://altss.com/profile/sturm-family-foundation)
- [United Way of Greater Rochester and the Finger Lakes](https://altss.com/profile/united-way-of-greater-rochester-and-the-finger-lakes)

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Last updated: 2026-08-11T02:43:31.692Z

Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/the-tracking-foundation

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