# United States-Japan Foundation (USJF)

United States-Japan Foundation (USJF) is a Foundation based in New York, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Foundation
- **Headquarters:** New York, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** 145 East 32nd Street, New York, NY 10016, United States
- **Founded:** 1980
- **Assets under management:** $90M–$110M (Altss estimate)
- **Website:** us-jf.org
- **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/united-states-japan-foundation

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

The United States-Japan Foundation was founded in 1980 after Ryoichi Sasakawa, through the Nippon Foundation, donated $44.8 million to create an independent US-based philanthropy. American diplomats Angier Biddle Duke and Robin Chandler Duke co-founded the organization, establishing dual headquarters in New York and Washington, D.C. The foundation's endowment is overseen by a board led by Chairman Lawrence K. Fish, former CEO of Citizens Financial Group, and President and CEO Jacob M. Schlesinger, who assumed the role in 2023. USJF's investment posture spans nine distinct asset classes, including buyout, venture, growth equity, distressed debt, mezzanine, natural resources, secondaries, real estate, and fund-of-funds commitments. The portfolio tilts heavily toward private markets, with confirmed allocations to private real estate funds across mixed-use properties. Unlike peers that outsource entirely to an OCIO, USJF retains a direct-investment architecture that mirrors the endowment model of a research university, though specific portfolio companies remain undisclosed. The foundation maintains offices in New York, Washington, D.C., and Tokyo, embedding itself in both American and Japanese deal ecosystems. An estimated $90–$110 million (Altss estimate) underpins the foundation's dual mission of capital deployment and grantmaking. Its flagship non-investment asset is the US-Japan Leadership Program (USJLP), a curated network of over 500 fellows across sectors — a resource that doubles as a proprietary sourcing channel and a vector for bilateral influence. In May 2023, Jacob Schlesinger moved from journalist to CEO, signaling a generational transition at the top. Board affiliations reinforce trans-Pacific access: Trustee Wendy Cutler serves as Vice President of the Asia Society Policy Institute, Trustee James Kondo chairs the International House of Japan, and Trustee Stan Kasten is President of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The foundation's structure is a misfit in typical allocator taxonomies — it behaves like a hybrid of a private foundation and a small institutional investor with a permanent-capital advantage and a deeply political, non-commercial mission. Governance straddles two nations, and its board blends financial-operating executives with career diplomats, creating a risk posture that prioritizes long-term relationship preservation over pure return maximization. That architecture, coupled with the USJLP network, places USJF closer to a bilateral sovereign-adjacent platform than a conventional charitable endowment.

## Sectors

- Buyout
- Distressed Debt
- Early Stage
- Fund of Funds
- Growth
- Mezzanine
- Natural Resources
- Secondaries
- Venture (General)

## Offices

- Washington, D.C., United States
- Tokyo, Japan

## People

- Ryoichi Sasakawa — Founder
- Angier Biddle Duke — Co-Founder
- Robin Chandler Duke — Co-Founder
- Lawrence K. Fish — Chairman of the Board of Trustees
- Jacob M. Schlesinger — President and CEO
- Caroline Kennedy — Trustee
- Wendy Cutler — Trustee
- Stan Kasten — Trustee
- Keiko Tashiro — Trustee
- Jeffery W. Yabuki — Trustee

## Questions

### What is the relationship between the US-Japan Foundation and the Nippon Foundation?

The Nippon Foundation, under Ryoichi Sasakawa, provided the original $44.8 million endowment grant in 1980 to create the US-Japan Foundation. Despite the shared founding lineage and ongoing board-level affiliations — USJF Trustee James Kondo chairs the International House of Japan, a Nippon Foundation grantee — the two are legally independent entities: USJF is a US-domiciled 501(c)(3), and the Nippon Foundation is a Japanese philanthropic organization.

### Does the foundation commit exclusively to US-Japan cross-border strategies?

No. While the foundation's grantmaking focuses on US-Japan bilateral projects, its investment portfolio spans broad private-market categories — buyout, venture, distressed debt, real estate, and natural resources — with a disclosed geographic footprint that includes US-based assets and Tokyo-based real estate. The foundation does not restrict its managers to cross-border mandates.

### How large is the foundation's investment portfolio, and is that number publicly confirmed?

The United States-Japan Foundation does not publicly disclose its assets under management. Altss estimates the endowment at $90–$110 million based on the original $44.8 million 1980 endowment, cumulative grantmaking history, and observed private-market allocations. No external publication has independently verified a precise AUM figure.

### What is the governance structure, and how is the board composed?

A bi-national Board of Trustees governs the foundation. It blends financial-operating executives (Chairman Lawrence K. Fish, Trustee Jeffery Yabuki of Motive Partners), diplomats (Former U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, Wendy Cutler of the Asia Society Policy Institute), and Japanese corporate leadership (Keiko Tashiro of Daiwa Securities). This composition embeds the foundation in both US and Japanese elite networks, reinforcing a permanent bilateral mandate.

## Related profiles

- [Operative Plasterers' and Cement Masons International Association](https://altss.com/profile/operative-plasterers-and-cement-masons-international-association)
- [Lois and Richard England Foundation](https://altss.com/profile/lois-and-richard-england-foundation)

---

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

Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/united-states-japan-foundation-usjf

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