SOROS GIVING MILLIONS TO 'ROBIN HOOD' CHARITY

By Judith Miller

NEW YORK The Robin Hood Foundation, a group that calls itself "guerrilla
philanthropists" and helps New York's poor, is about to get a major boost
from a truly rich New Yorker.

George Soros, the financierphilanthropist, is to announce Wednesday that
he is giving the foundation $4.5 million over the next three years. It
would be the largest single donation Robin Hood has received and Soros'
largest single gift to a New Yorkoriented charity.

Foundation executive director David Saltzman said the grant, half of which
is dependent on matching gifts from other donors, would enable Robin Hood
to substantially increase the $8.9 million it gave this year in grants and
services to 93 New York City community groups to help disadvantaged
children and teenagers find mentors, afterschool care, jobs and career
counseling. With an endowment of $20 million, relatively small by New York
foundation standards, Robin Hood is nonetheless the largest private donor
to New York schools that offer extended school days and semesters, and has
given more money to Head Start programs in the city than any other
citybased foundation. It also makes contributions to the Rheedlen Center
for Children and Families in Harlem, the Children's Defense Fund, and Food
For Survival.

Paul Tudor Jones II, 43, a commodities broker and a selfmade millionaire
from Memphis, and two other young Wall Street brokers started the
foundation a decade ago to promote what Jones calls a "social venture
capital" approach to philanthropy. Charity, the foundation's young,
entrepreneurial board members say, should work more like business in
demanding good return on each philanthropic dollar.

In an interview, Soros said that he was making his largest single gift to a
New Yorkoriented charity because he and Robin Hood share "common
interests" in helping children and building communities, and a common
approach to philanthropy. He said he also wanted to "reward Robin Hood's
creative, entrepreneurial giving and its excellent track record."

Through his own international network of foundations based in New York and
Budapest, Soros, 67, has given away more than $400 million at home and
abroad this year to wideranging programs that promote civil and human
rights and civic democracy, as well as debate about issues like drug policy
reform and giving people more control over how they die.

Soros and Jones also have friends in common, including Stanley
Druckenmiller, who advises Soros in his investment strategies and, as a
Robin Hood board member, helps manage the foundation's portfolio. In the
introduction he wrote to Soros' book, "The Alchemy of Finance," published
in 1994, Jones described Soros as "someone who genuinely cares about the
state of the human condition and a monumental philanthropist."

The Soros gift is scheduled to be announced at a breakfast honoring Sister
Mary Franciscus, the founder and director of Opportunities for a Better
Tomorrow, a job training and placement center in Brooklyn; Willie Battle,
the founder and executive director of Imani Altisimo, a youth program in
East New York; Amalia V. Betanzos, the president of the Wildcat Academy, a
public school for children expelled from other public schools; and Warner
LeRoy, the owner of Tavern on the Green, who has helped raise more than $3
million for Robin Hood and is to be host to Wednesday's breakfast for the
eighth consecutive year.