Francine A. LeFrak
Credit - Michael Ostuni—Francine LeFrak, whose family oversees one of the biggest real estate companies in the New York City tri-state area, focuses her philanthropy on women, using an approach that she calls the 'three pillars' of wellness: physical, mental, and financial.
The latest example of her largesse: the Francine A. LeFrak Foundation Center for Well-Being at Barnard College, which opened in June 2024. The state-of-the-art facility, which cost $36 million to build (LeFrak's foundation was the lead donor), offers behavioral and physical fitness services and financial literacy training to both students and college staff at the women's college. The year before the foundation took a similar approach in New Jersey financing a wellness center in Jersey City that provides vocational training, medical services, and micro-grants to women involved in the court system.
LeFrak, who hopes to replicate the Barnard wellness center at other colleges, says she developed her three-pillars approach in 2007 after working with Rwandan women who were supporting themselves by selling handmade jewelry and housewares after surviving the country's 1994 genocide. 'Talent is everywhere, opportunity isn't,' says LeFrak, a 2019 Giving Pledge signatory. 'The dignity of work is the best philanthropy.'
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