Steve Tisch saw his mother devote much of her adult life and fortune to working toward a world without AIDS.
Joan Tisch is the widow of Preston Robert (Bob) Tisch, the late co-owner of Loews Corporation, a multibillion-dollar hotel, insurance, and oil-drilling conglomerate. In the mid-1980s, she volunteered with the New York City group then called Gay Men’s Health Crisis, an unusual cause for a woman of her circumstances to embrace back then.
Ms. Tisch spent years at the charity, now known as GMHC — answering phones, stuffing envelopes, helping clients navigate their medical bills. She went on to join the Board of Directors and funded construction of GMHC’s Tisch Building.
That spirit of giving back is being carried on by her son, an Oscar-winning Hollywood producer (his credits include Forrest Gump and Risky Business) and Super Bowl-winning National Football League executive (the Tisch family has long co-owned the New York Giants). Personal ties often fuel his philanthropic interests, which include HIV/AIDS, sports-related brain injuries, film education, cancer research, Jewish causes, and the arts.
In recent years he’s given millions to support Tufts University, his alma mater; Friends of the Israel Defense Forces; the Motion Picture & Television Fund, which provides health care and other services to aging show-business veterans; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 2015, he gave $10 million to Tel Aviv University to help turn its department of film and television into a graduate school.
‘Focused and Specific’
Today he owns a stake in the family business, Loews Corporation. His father, a businessman and postmaster general who died in 2005, impressed on him that with great wealth also comes great responsibility.
Steve Tisch says his parents were his first role models in philanthropy, stressing “not only of the importance of the opportunities to change the lives of other people but also, as I got a little older, the responsibility.”
While he works with consultant Jeffrey Stewart to discuss new philanthropic opportunities, Mr. Tisch says the real giving decisions are deeply personal.
“When I’m touched and see that I can have an impact and make a difference, that’s really the test,” he says. “I want my giving to be focused and specific. I don’t want to identify 500 organizations and give $10 to each.”
He gives through the Steve Tisch Family Foundation, which granted almost $6.2 million in 2015, and the Steve Tisch Foundation, which dispersed more than $1.4 million that year, according to the organizations’ most recent available tax filings
A ‘Low-Maintenance Donor’
Mr. Tisch’s career as a philanthropist began back in 1971, when he made the move from New York to Los Angeles to pursue a career in entertainment.
In 1991, Hollywood mogul David Geffen, whom Mr. Tisch considers a mentor, asked him to become a board member of AIDS Project Los Angeles (now APLA Health), which helped support people living with the disease.
A year later, at a time when the need for the charity’s services was at a peak, Mr. Tisch assumed the board chairmanship. He was credited for remaking the organization, being unusually hands-on, and increasing its budget by millions during a recession.
“He’s really gotten his guts into it,” Mr. Geffen told the Los Angeles Times in 1993. “He’s not some figurehead.”
Mr. Tisch has kept up his commitment to the cause. In November, the Elton John AIDS Foundation honored him with its Enduring Vision Award for longtime supporters.
He has also given to the Foundation for AIDS Research, or Amfar, says Eric Muscatell, the group’s vice president of development.
Mr. Muscatell describes Mr. Tisch as “a very low-maintenance donor” who is deeply invested in the cause.
“Some donors give a lot and expect a lot back in return for the donation as far as recognition or involvement,” he says. “Steve has never asked that of us.”
Since 2012, Mr. Tisch has purchased the highest-level ticket — $15,000 — to the foundation’s annual Los Angeles gala, providing dollars for general support rather than earmarked gifts. “He’s trusting us to take that money and put it to use where we think it would do the most good,” says Mr. Muscatell.
Family Ties
Like his HIV/AIDS work, inspired by his mother’s example, Mr. Tisch’s other philanthropic interests often have a family connection.
In 2004, when Bob Tisch was diagnosed with a brain tumor, his son began researching the best treatments around the country. That led him to Duke University, to which his family donated $10 million after his father’s death for what is now the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Cancer Center, which the family still supports.
The younger generation of Steve Tisch’s family influenced another big gift. He gave $10 million in 2014 to launch the UCLA Steve Tisch BrainSPORT Program, which studies ways to diagnose, prevent, and treat sports concussions. As the chairman of an NFL team, he already knew about the dangers. But the issue came home for him a couple of years ago, when his daughter, then 16, suffered a mild concussion playing lacrosse.
His family’s philanthropic spirit is a sentiment the 68-year-old billionaire wants to pass down to all five of his children, who range in age from 16 to 31.
“I want my kids to look at me as a role model,” he says. “Because of their situation, it comes with opportunities to change the world of others.”
With current signs pointing to government funding cuts in areas like research, human services, and education, there is an even greater onus on those with means, Mr. Tisch says: “To depend on somebody else doing that is not realistic.”
Correction: A previous version of this article said that Steve Tisch’s father was a film producer and television executive instead of a businessman and postmaster general. (His uncle was once the chief executive of CBS.) It also said he gave $10 million to Duke, but the gift was from his family.
