To Israelis and many Jewish organizations around the globe, the name Lynn Schusterman is synonymous with philanthropic endeavors aimed at improving quality of life, encouraging leadership, strengthening Jewish identity, supporting Jewish innovators and expanding opportunities for service learning and promoting inclusivity.
She and her late husband Charles created the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation in 1987. Of the millions of dollars given away by the foundation, 75% went to Jewish causes and 25% to their home state of Oklahoma. In 2020, the Schusterman family gave $400 million across its charitable grant-making, including $150 million in COVID relief efforts in the US and Israel.
The Schustermans have devoted substantial resources to ensuring a strong US-Israel relationship and to strengthening Israel as a secure homeland for the Jewish people and a thriving democracy.
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They are the lead funders to support Israel and combat BDS on college campuses and are at the forefront of welfare work for Israel through long standing support for child and family safety, with particular focus on the prevention of child abuse and neglect.
The foundation is currently chaired by the couple's daughter Stacy H. Schusterman. Her late father, who died in 2000, was the founder and owner of Samson Resources, which over time became one of the largest oil and gas exploration and production companies in the United States. After spending a year in Israel in the early 1980s, Stacy, one of three siblings, returned to the US, graduated from Yale, and subsequently earned an MBA from the University of Texas.
She then began working in the family business, serving as its CEO and then selling it for $7.2 billion. Following the sale, she founded Samson Energy’s deep-water drilling company.
"Our Jewish values have always been – and will always be – at the core of our family’s philanthropy: a commitment to the pursuit of justice (tzedek), repairing the world (tikkun olam) and treating all people with dignity and civility (derekh eretz)," Stacy wrote on the foundation's website.