“For as long as my family's been in this country, they've always engaged in some kind of philanthropic activity, even before they got the big money,” says Jennifer Pritzker, a scion of the wealthy Pritzker family, whose members include the current governor of Illinois J.B. Pritzker, former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and several other billionaires. Jennifer’s first act of philanthropy, she recalls, was “shoving a cardboard UNICEF collection box in people's faces” in hotel lobbies and on buses for a weekend of fundraising. “I did pretty well,” she says. “I collected $50, which in 1962, was a lot of money for a kid.”
Pritzker has walked an unconventional path and her philanthropic efforts reflect her determination to march to the beat of her own drum. She is a lifelong Republican and former active duty military who donated to Joe Biden’s Presidential campaign in 2020. She founded and supports the Pritzker Military Museum & Library and her Tawani Foundation (named after her three children) recently arranged for a fully restored Frank Lloyd Wright House to be donated to her alma mater Loyola University. She has donated to send medical aid to Ukraine and to research polar fields in Antarctica. Grants that Pritzker, the world’s richest transgender woman, made last year included $1 million to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and $400,000 for transgender health initiatives.
“I see [philanthropy] as absolutely essential for one to have quality of life,” she says. “It's like nurturing the soil. If you want to plant anything, you're not going to get a good crop yield unless you contribute to the health of the soil.”