Steven M. Hilton

Last updated
Steven M. Hilton
Born (1950-11-09) November 9, 1950 (age 73) [1]
Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Education UCLA Anderson School of Management
Alma mater University of California, Santa Barbara
OccupationPhilanthropist
PredecessorDonald H. Hubbs
SuccessorPeter Laugharn
Parent
Relatives Hilton family
AwardsYunus Social Innovation Medal, Southern California Grantmakers' Heart of Philanthropy Award, UCLA Anderson’s 100 Inspirational Alumni, Distinguished Alumni Award by the UC Santa Barbara Alumni Association
Website https://www.hiltonfoundation.org

Steven Michael Hilton (born November 9, 1950) is an American philanthropist. He is the son of hotel magnate Barron Hilton, and grandson of Conrad Hilton who founded the Hilton Hotels chain. Steven Hilton is the chairman of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, a humanitarian charity working to improve the lives of disadvantaged and vulnerable people throughout the world. He served as president and CEO of the foundation prior to his retirement in 2015, since which he has remained chairman. During his tenure, annual grants have grown from a total of $6 million to $100 million a year, providing more than $1.4 billion to nonprofit organizations.

Contents

Early career and education

Hilton was born in Santa Monica, California, the third of eight children born to Marilyn June (née Hawley) and William Barron Hilton. Barron, who succeeded his father Conrad Hilton as president and CEO of Hilton Hotels Corporation in 1966, served as the family's patriarch after Conrad's death in 1979. Steven grew up with his siblings at their family home, first in Santa Monica, and later in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles.

He earned a bachelor's degree in History at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1974, and prepared to follow his father into the hotel business. He spent five years working in a variety of sales and operations positions at Hilton hotels in Georgia, Alabama and California. He briefly explored the science and economics of aquaculture in California and Hawaii before returning to Southern California in 1983 to contemplate his next career move. He sought the counsel of Donald H. Hubbs, a longtime business advisor to both his father and his grandfather. Hubbs, who was chairman, president and chief executive officer of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, felt that Hilton's work ethic and sensitivity were well-suited to philanthropy. He offered him a job as an entry-level program assistant. [2]

Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

Hilton was soon promoted to program associate, then program officer. In the late '80s, he earned a master's degree from the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1989, he was put in charge of grant-making as vice president of programs, and was elected to the board of directors. The board named him president in 1998, and on Hubbs' retirement in 2005, Hilton succeeded him as CEO as well. [3]

During his years with the foundation, Hilton has honed the foundation's focus onto 11 priority areas: providing safe water, ending chronic homelessness, preventing substance abuse, helping children affected by HIV and AIDS, supporting transition-age youth in foster care, preventing avoidable blindness, disaster relief and recovery, hospitality workforce development, improving the lives of multiple sclerosis patients, supporting Catholic education, and extending Conrad Hilton’s support for the work of Catholic Sisters. The foundation also introduced the annual Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, which is awarded to a nonprofit organization doing extraordinary work to reduce human suffering. The prize shines a spotlight on the charity that helps raise awareness and funding for its good work, thereby leveraging the effectiveness of an unrestricted $2 million grant which is awarded along with the prize. [4]

Hilton’s leadership was instrumental in many of the foundation's milestone achievements:

Hilton has also been directly involved in the foundation's response to humanitarian crises. He traveled to Haiti in January 2010, just days after the earthquake that killed 220,000 people and injured 330,000 more. The Hilton Foundation immediately provided $500,000 in grants to organizations that provided emergency aid for more than 200,000 survivors. Hilton accompanied aid workers to the devastated capital of Port-au-Prince, and the epicenter in the area of Léogâne 16 miles to the west. Later in the year, the Hilton Foundation provided another $575,000 in grants to three organizations that were helping children severely traumatized by the quake. [6]

Since 2012, the Hilton Foundation has funded relief efforts for the Syrian refugee crisis—the largest population displacement since World War II. In February 2015, Hilton traveled to the Turkish-Syrian border with two of these grantee organizations – Luftfahrt ohne Grenzen (LOG/Wings of Help) and International Medical Corps – to see first-hand the services being provided in partnership with the Turkish Government, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and other international organizations and local nongovernmental organizations. By March 2015, the foundation had made a total of $1.8 million in grants to organizations serving this displaced population. Hilton authored an op-ed piece published in The Seattle Times calling for increased investment in refugee relief by the international community—with a special call for increased support from foundations. He warned that it could become one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of our lifetime. [7] His words were prophetic. Just a year later, more than 13.5 million Syrians were in need of humanitarian aid, with 6.5 million displaced from their homes inside the country. An estimated 4.8 million Syrians had flooded across the border seeking refuge in Europe and the Middle East. [8]

Hilton also took a personal interest in the effort to relocate the foundation from an office building in Los Angeles to a permanent campus in Agoura Hills 40 miles to the northwest. [9]

By 2016, the assets of the foundation had grown to more than $2.5 billion. Like his father before him, Barron Hilton has pledged 97 percent of his personal wealth to the foundation as well. His endowment could bring the total corpus to more than $5 billion, making it one of the dozen or so largest foundations in the U.S. [10] Barron, who had been a director of the foundation since 1950, served as chairman of the board from 2007 to 2012 before retiring and ceding the position to his son. At the end of 2015, Steven Hilton retired as president and CEO, while retaining his position as chairman of the board. [11] Prior Steven's arrival in 1983, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation had made a total of $6 million in grants since its formation in 1944. By the time he retired, the foundation had made $1.4 billion in grants. [12]

Honors

Over his 30 years with the foundation, Steven Hilton has received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Pepperdine University, and has been honored by St. Joseph Center and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society through its Southern California Chapter. He was selected as one of UCLA Anderson’s 100 Inspirational Alumni and was given the Distinguished Alumni Award by the UC Santa Barbara Alumni Association. Hilton was the inaugural recipient of the Yunus Social Innovation Medal presented by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus and California State University, Channel Islands. He was also the inaugural recipient of Southern California Grantmakers’ Heart of Philanthropy Award. He previously served on the board of the Conrad N. Hilton Fund for Sisters. He also served on the boards of the Archdiocesan Finance Council, the BEST Foundation, Loyola Marymount University, Southern California Grantmakers, and St. Joseph Center. [3]

Personal

Hilton resides in Malibu, California, where he enjoys his lifelong passion of surfing. [13] He earned a 2nd degree black belt in Aikido and has been practicing Taiji Chuan for a number of years. Personal hobbies include the study of health and wellness, hiking, weight-training, yoga, gardening and reading. [13] [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conrad Hilton</span> American hotelier (1887–1979)

Conrad Nicholson Hilton was an American businessman who founded the Hilton Hotels chain. From 1912 to 1916, Hilton was a Republican representative in the first New Mexico Legislature, but became disillusioned with the "inside deals" of politics. In 1919, he purchased his first hotel, the Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas, for $40,000, and subsequently capitalized on the oil boom. The rooms were rented out in eight-hour shifts. He continued to buy and sell hotels, and eventually established the world's first international hotel chain. When he died in 1979, he left the bulk of his estate to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MacArthur Foundation</span> American private foundation

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 117 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.6 billion and provides approximately $260 million annually in grants and impact investments. It is based in Chicago, and in 2014 it was the 12th-largest private foundation in the United States. It has awarded more than US$7.92 billion since its first grants in 1978.

SOS Children's Villages is an independent, non-governmental, nonprofit international development organization headquartered in Innsbruck, Austria. The organization provides humanitarian and developmental assistance to families facing difficulties and supports children and young people without parental care or at risk of losing it. The organization also protects their interests and rights around the world. Today, SOS Children's Villages is active in more than 130 countries and territories worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barron Hilton</span> American hotelier (1927–2019)

William Barron Hilton was an American business magnate, philanthropist and sportsman. The second son and successor of hotelier Conrad Hilton, he was the chairman, president and chief executive officer of Hilton Hotels Corporation and chairman emeritus of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. Hilton, a notable pilot and outdoorsman, was also a founder of the American Football League as the original owner of the Los Angeles Chargers, and helped forge the merger with the National Football League that created the Super Bowl. Like his father before him, he pledged 97 percent of his wealth to the humanitarian work of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. At the time, the gift was projected to increase the foundation's endowment from $2.9 billion to $6.3 billion, and will make his estate the organization's most significant donor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Hilton</span> American businessman

Richard Howard Hilton is an American businessman. He is the chairman and co-founder of Hilton & Hyland, a real estate brokerage firm based in Beverly Hills, California, that specializes in homes and estates in Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, Bel-Air, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Hollywood Hills, as well as estates from Santa Barbara to San Diego.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conrad N. Hilton Foundation</span> American non-profit charitable foundation

The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation is an American non-profit charitable foundation, established in 1944 by hotel entrepreneur Conrad Hilton. It remained relatively small until his death on January 3, 1979, when it was named the principal beneficiary of his estate. In 2007, Conrad's son, Barron Hilton announced that he would leave about 97% of his fortune to a charitable remainder unitrust which names the foundation as the remainder beneficiary.

Heifer International is a global nonprofit working to eradicate poverty and hunger through sustainable, values-based holistic community development. Heifer International distributes animals, along with agricultural and value-based training, to families in need around the world as a means of providing self-sufficiency. Recipients must agree to "pass on the gift" by donating animal offspring, as well as sharing the skills and knowledge of animal husbandry and agricultural training with other impoverished families in the community. The organization receives financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, BlackRock, Cargill, Mastercard Foundation, Walmart and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.

Constance Francesca Gabor Hilton, known as Francesca Hilton, was an American actress and comedian. She was the only child of Hilton Hotels founder Conrad Hilton and his second wife, actress and socialite Zsa Zsa Gabor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management</span>

The Conrad N. Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership is a college at the University of Houston, a public research university in Houston, Texas, focused on hospitality. It is one of 13 academic colleges at the university that offers business degrees at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Drummond MacGavin Pike is an American philanthropist and progressive political activist. He founded the Tides Foundation in 1976 and served as its president until 2010. He currently serves as a principal at Equilibrium Capital Group. Pike helped pioneer the advent of donor-advised funds in philanthropy.

John L. Notter is an American financier and developer who manages and has substantial interests in a wide variety of companies, including Westlake Properties, Inc., and Sailview Associates, Inc., of Westlake Village, California; and Clark Road Development, LLC and Sherwood Holdings LTD. of Sarasota, Florida.

Justin Hawley McAuliffe is an American entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the grandson of Barron Hilton and the great-grandson of Conrad Hilton, founder of Hilton Hotels. He is the founder and CEO of Acceleron Digital, a digital marketing agency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bloomberg Philanthropies</span> Charitable organization

Bloomberg Philanthropies is a philanthropic organization that encompasses all of the charitable giving of founder Michael R. Bloomberg. Headquartered in New York City, Bloomberg Philanthropies focuses its resources on five areas: the environment, public health, the arts, government innovation and education. According to the Foundation Center, Bloomberg Philanthropies was the 10th largest foundation in the United States in 2015, the last year for which data was available. Bloomberg has pledged to donate the majority of his wealth, currently estimated at more than $54 billion. Patti Harris is the CEO of Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Steve McCormick is the former president of The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (2007–2014) and the former president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy (2000–2007). In May 2014, Gordon Moore announced that McCormick was leaving the Moore Foundation to co-found a startup to create the first global, open-source database on ecosystem services and natural capital, called The Earth Genome. McCormick is a board member for many social impact and environmental organizations.

Peter Laugharn is the current president and chief executive officer of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. He previously served as the executive director of the Firelight Foundation and the executive director of the Bernard van Leer Foundation. A graduate of Stanford University, Georgetown University and with a Ph.D. in education from the University of London, Laugharn began his career volunteering for the Peace Corps and later worked for Save the Children in West Africa.

The Genesis Philanthropy Group (GPG) is a global family of foundations, co-founded by Mikhail Fridman, an international businessman and philanthropist, and his business partners. In 2022 after Russian invasion in Ukraine the EU imposed sanctions on Fridman, who said the EU's allegations were false and defamatory. After that the Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into and frozen the bank account. An interim manager was subsequently appointed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">METAdrasi</span> Refugee aid organization in Greece

METAdrasi – Action for Migration and Development, commonly known as METAdrasi, is a Greek non-profit civil society organisation that promotes the reception and integration of migrants and refugees in Greece.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Network for Empowered Aid Response</span> Network of local humanitarian organisations

The Network for Empowered Aid Response, often called the NEAR Network, is a group of humanitarian civil society organisations based in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

The Heising-Simons Foundation is a private foundation established by philanthropists Elizabeth (Liz) Simons and Mark Heising in Los Altos, California in 2007. The Heising-Simons Foundation's board consists of Liz Simons, Mark Heising, their daughter Caitlin Heising, and Sushma Raman. Liz Simons and Mark Heising signed the Giving Pledge in 2016.

References

  1. ↑ "Stephen Michael Hilton, Born 11/09/1950 in California". California Birth Index. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  2. ↑ "An In-depth Interview with Steven Hilton, President and CEO of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation". The Huffington Post. 27 March 2011.
  3. 1 2 "Steven M. Hilton". Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.
  4. ↑ "Opinion: Hilton Prize Offers Important Lessons for Foundations". The Chronicle of Philanthropy. 19 October 2015.
  5. ↑ "An In-depth Interview with Steven Hilton, President and CEO of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation". Huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  6. ↑ Foundation Center. "Hilton Foundation Supports Organizations Helping Children in Haiti". Philanthropy News Digest (PND).
  7. ↑ "Syrian refugee crisis outstrips international aid". The Seattle Times. 28 March 2015.
  8. ↑ "Syria Crisis". Internationalmedicalcorps.org. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  9. ↑ "Gregory J. Wilcox: Conrad N. Hilton Foundation Moves Headquarters to Agoura Hills". Dailynews.com. 7 May 2013. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  10. ↑ "The Acorn". The Acorn. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
  11. ↑ "New Leadership, Doubled Assets at Hilton Foundation". The Chronicle of Social Change. 21 January 2016.
  12. ↑ "2015: Year in Review · Conrad N. Hilton Foundation". Hiltonfoundation.org. Retrieved 2016-04-14.
  13. 1 2 "Change underway at Hilton Foundation". The Acorn. 2014-04-03. Retrieved 2016-05-04.
  14. ↑ Steve and Dave Hilton Skateboarding 1965 Hobie Skateboards , retrieved 2020-01-14
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.