Ken Griffin gifts $2 million to Breakthrough Miami, area mentorship nonprofit

Education admin July 1, 2026 0 Comments

Ken Griffin gifts $2 million to Breakthrough Miami, area mentorship nonprofit

Billionaire hedge fund manager and philanthropist Ken Griffin announced another gift to an education-oriented group in South Florida Wednesday.

Griffin is giving Breakthrough Miami, an academic nonprofit featuring a peer-to-peer mentorship program for South Florida students, $2 million to help fund its programming.

“Breakthrough Miami has a profound impact on the lives of Miami students by teaching them the leadership and learning skills they need to pursue their dreams and aspirations. I care deeply about the lives of young people, and I am excited to know that my support of Breakthrough Miami will make a meaningful difference in our community,” Griffin wrote in the release

The gift is one of several the entrepreneur has made in recent years since moving to South Florida and moving the headquarters of his company Citadel – one of the world’s largest hedge funds – to Miami.

Many gifts, like a recent $50 million donation to nonprofit charter school operator Success Academy to expand its footprint in the area, have been oriented towards education. Griffin also gave $50 million to the University of Miami for a research facility, $20 million to Miami Dade College, $16 million for collaborations with Miami-Dade County Public Schools and more.

Breakthrough Miami currently serves about 1,800 students in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. The $2 million from Griffin is targeted towards expanding the population of high schoolers in the grades 5-12 program, allowing around 600 more students to serve as peer mentors and teachers.

Programming takes place over a six-week “summer institute” as well as a commitment to at least two days of schooling on Saturday each month.

Lori-Ann Cox, the nonprofit’s CEO, told the Herald that programming builds both knowledge and confidence.

“We’re working with kids not just to make sure that they’re exposed to academic rigor and given tools for resiliency and leadership, but also [for] their confidence and exploring all the options that are open to them. It’s truly a belief that, given the opportunities and setting high expectations, students will step up to that,” Cox said.

Unlike Griffin’s splashy Success Academy gift – lobbyists affiliated with Griffin also successfully pushed for a bill expanding Florida’s charter “Schools of Hope” law – the Breakthrough Miami gift is not particularly oriented towards charter schools or other school choice initiatives.

Coming from more than 320 schools in the area, about 70% of program participants attend traditional public schools and 22% attend public charter schools.

Julia Quinn, director of philanthropy at Citadel, told the Herald that the gift was in line with Griffin’s desire to strengthen Miami through education.

“Ken believes that expanding access to high-quality education is one of the most effective ways to strengthen communities and create pathways for success across the board, and so this gift really is an investment in expanding opportunity by equipping more young people with leadership skills [and] teaching professional skills needed to succeed in college and careers. So, it’s really consistent with many of his other education focused gifts in South Florida,” Quinn said.

Breakthrough has relationships with several schools in the area and regularly visits schools to present its program to area fourth graders, Cox said. Applications are quite rigorous by elementary school standards.

Students submit their test scores, transcripts, a personal essay, two letters of recommendation from teachers and sit for an interview. Parents also have to answer some short questions.

Part of Breakthrough Miami’s mission – and its pitch to donors like Griffin – is that they’re preparing young people for adult life. In the case of peer mentors, they may even be preparing them for the teaching profession.

“This is intentionally workforce development for a lot of the young people that come to us. This is their first real job: We’re teaching them how to open bank accounts, manage their time, complete time sheets, produce meaningful deliverables and engage with young people who are looking up to them,” Cox said.

Cox and Griffin’s team are bullish on the results that the program produces.

According to their data, 100% of Breakthrough participants graduate from high school on time and more than 99% enroll immediately in college, with over 90% of them enrolling in four-year institutions.

That puts them on a path to take their mentorship experience with them, possibly as future educators or leaders, Quinn said.

“I think too often students don’t have those opportunities early in their educational trajectories and career trajectories. Being able to create those, and hopefully inspire folks to get excited about careers in education, but also just inspired about the ways that they can lead and support others in their communities is one of the things we love about this program,” Quinn said.