Richard Buery
CEO, Robin Hood
Most of history is written by people who are not famous, but who nonetheless have broad impact.
Summary
This week, Alan was joined by nonprofit leader and changemaking expert, Richard Buery. Richard currently serves as the CEO of New York City’s largest poverty-fighting organization, Robin Hood. Richard’s experience in nonprofit leadership spans over 30 years, and he has used his vast experience to improve education, childcare, entrepreneurial opportunity and more in his home city of New York.
During their hour-long conversation, Alan and Richard discussed Richard’s upbringing in Brooklyn, New York as the son of Panamanian immigrants, the role of teachers and mentors in his successes, his time as Deputy Mayor in the City of New York and the phenomenal work of Robin Hood in alleviating poverty in New York City.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
Guest Bio
A first-generation, Panamanian American born and raised in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, Richard R. Buery, Jr. has spent his career fighting to advance equal opportunities for families and communities often left behind. In September 2021, Richard became the CEO of Robin Hood, one of the nation’s leading anti-poverty organizations.
At just 16 years old, Richard graduated from Stuyvesant High School and attended Harvard. He later earned a law degree from Yale and brought his talent and skills home to put them to work immediately. Most recently, Richard served as the CEO of Robin Hood’s community partner Achievement First, a network of 41 charter schools across New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.
Richard has extensive experience as a leader, manager, and social innovator within local government, as well as New York’s vast social service nonprofit sector.
As Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives for the City of New York, Richard was the key architect of the City’s Pre-K for All initiative, enabling 50,000 additional 4-years to get an early start on their education through a free, full-day program. He also launched Schools Out NYC, offering free after school programs to all NYC middle school students, stood up 200 new community school partnerships, and led the City’s effort to recruit 1,000 men of color to become public school teachers.
Additionally, Richard launched the mental health reform initiative, ThriveNYC, and managed the City’s relationship with the 250,000 student City University of New York System (CUNY), stewarding significant investments that improved college persistence for NYC students. Richard also managed a range of city agencies, including the Departments of Probation, Aging, Youth and Community Development, People with Disabilities, and Immigrant Affairs, and created the New York City Children’s Cabinet, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Mayor’s Office of Minority and Women Business Enterprises.
As a leader in the nonprofit sector, Richard has worked for or led four major nonprofits that are among Robin Hood’s grantees: the Brennan Center at NYU’s School of Law, KIPP, Children’s Aid, and Achievement First. Additionally, Richard founded Groundwork to support the educational aspirations of public housing residents in Brooklyn, and was cofounder of the national nonprofit, iMentor, which pairs high school students with mentors to help them navigate to and through college.
Richard founded his first nonprofit at a Roxbury housing development while still in college. He was a teacher in Zimbabwe, a campaign manager to former Cambridge Mayor Ken Reeves, and clerked at the Federal Court of Appeals in New York.
Today, Richard also serves as a Public Service Fellow at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, where he was the Distinguished Visiting Urbanist during the Spring of 2019. He is also a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School, a Senior Fellow at the GovLab at NYU, and a partner at the Perception Institute. He serves on the boards of the Kresge Foundation, iMentor, United to Protect Democracy, Atria Health Collaborative, the Grace Church School, and on the Alumni Advisory Council of the Tsai Leadership Program at Yale Law School. A fellow of the Pahara Institute and the British American Project, Richard has previously taught courses in social entrepreneurship, New York City affairs, and the financial management of nonprofit organizations at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, New York Law School, and the Baruch School of Public Affairs.
A husband and father, Richard lives in Manhattan with his wife Deborah and their two sons.
Episode Transcript
Alan Fleischmann
Today I'm joined by an inspiring leader in community improvement, social equity and philanthropy. Richard Buery is the CEO of Robin Hood Foundation in New York. But frankly, they do work all over the country. It's the largest poverty fighting organization in New York City. Through its business model, the Robin Hood Foundation supports impactful nonprofits, helping to elevate New Yorkers across all five boroughs.
Over the last three decades, the organization's invested $3 billion in New York City's low income families, and it has become a model for the nation. Having led several organizations focused on community development, and improving social programs, Richard has over 30 years of experience in public and nonprofit leadership, and has helped to utterly transform his beloved home city of New York.
Richard, I wanted to have you on the show for so long. It is such a pleasure to have you on today on Leadership Matters. So welcome. And I'm interested in telling the whole Rich Buery story. And I like by the way, if you want to know how to pronounce your name, Buery, think fury. I think that's a great way to actually think with your brain’s fire and tenacity and an amazing amount of persistence to everything you do. And that's been your whole story, which is really impressive.
Richard Buery
Well, that's very kind of you. Great to be here with you. And thanks for having me. Glad to be on. Wonderful.
Alan Fleischmann
Tell us a little bit about growing up in East New York, Brooklyn. What was it like growing up around the house? Did you have brothers and sisters? What'd your parents do a little bit about family life as you grow?
Richard Buery
Yeah, so pretty standard life. Well, I grew up in East New York, Brooklyn. As you said, East New York is a neighborhood and I think “Eastern New York” people just think I mean, the Eastern part of New York. But you know, East New York is a neighborhood. It's next door to Brownsville and Canarsie in Eastern Brooklyn, it's sort of as far as you can go out in Brooklyn, if you're going eastern Atlantic Avenue before you get to Queens for those people who know a little bit about New York. And it's, you know, it was a community that was predominantly a Black and Latino community, a community that, like lots of Black and Latino communities in other cities around the country, experienced challenges with schools and crime. But of course, also like an amazing community with families and neighbors. You know, I grew up very close to all the neighbors on my block and extended family. So you know, it was a challenging place. I grew up in many ways, but also a supportive place to grow up.
And my parents grew up with my parents, who were Panamanian immigrants. So they immigrated dependent from Panama in the 60s, to New York. My mom is a retired teacher. She taught high school for I think, 37 years, the same high school, East New York High School, which became East New York High School of Transit Technology. So public high school, public vocational, technical high school in Brooklyn, she taught Spanish and ESL. Taught thousands of kids Spanish except for her own children.
Alan Fleischmann
He says with a little bit of regret.
Richard Buery
And just sometimes, yeah, sometimes the immigrant story, you know, trying to raise American kids didn't teach us Spanish. And my dad, who's also Richard Buery, a singer, a beautiful singer. And for work, he worked for a few different jobs that he worked for a long time for an import export company, he worked for a company that makes Low Vision Products for a company called A Lighthouse, where he retired from. And two sisters, an older sister, who is a doctor in Virginia, and a younger sister who is an occupational therapist, for New York City schools and school employees.
Alan Fleischmann
And then your mom being an educator, how much influence did that have in your life and your upbringing?
Richard Buery
I mean, sure that had tons of influence, you know, I will just add I was at an event last night, on a panel and they asked us to name our heroes, sorry that wasn't the question, it was to name people who had an impact on the history of New York and I named my mom. In part because there are too many famous names to come up with, but I think you know, we tell that story by history, it's very easy to think about all the famous names. But you know, most of history is written by people who are not famous, but who nonetheless have broad impact. My mom was definitely one of those people she taught Spanish but she also taught ESL, in a community that is a heavily immigrant community. And so I really saw in part because you know, I, we lived in a neighborhood where she taught. There were a lot of you know, you come across current former students, just running out running errands with your mother over the weekend.
You really see the impact, and I thought the impact that a teacher could have on people, just by the way, people reacted to her the impact she's had in their lives as they were new to the country. And we're trying to learn the language and trying to acclimate High School and think about careers. So definitely.
I think even beyond that, you know, my parents were just people who are very community engaged people. You know, we grew up, we were church kids, we grew up in a church. St. Gabriel's Episcopal Church, which is a church on Hawthorne Street in Brooklyn. It's a very Caribbean and immigrant community in that church. And you know, I grew up with when my parents came, and they came in the 60s, lots of lots of their friends emigrated to so I grew up going to church with the kids of like, my parents, childhood friends in Brooklyn. And they were very focused on the church. And they were always like the church Warden, the people who were making sure that we were building a new church, leaving the building and singing in the choir and teaching Sunday school.
So I think, you know, certainly, my mother, as a teacher, I think clearly influenced me and how I think how I thought about how I saw the people who were there, for other people, the people who were there for kids, the people who were there for new New Yorkers, but my parents just sort of generally, you know, community really mattered to them. And giving back to your community and being responsible for the institutions of your community, and I think all those things, probably, you know, when you're 10, you know, you're not, you know, celebrated at the time. But I do think hopefully, it is some osmosis that happens, probably.
Alan Fleischmann
That's so cool. You know, one of the things that struck me looking at your, your growing up, is you went to Stuyvesant High School, which, for those who don't know, is one of the most selective, you know, kind of the genius kids public high schools in New York City. And there are two things that struck me first of all, knowing that you went there not that I wouldn't know, knowing you wouldn't assume you went there. But I know how hard it is to get in there, even though it's a public school, but you also graduated at the age of 16. So tell us a little bit about that. Because clearly, you went on the fast track, you must have either through your mom or through your teachers, they realize you should be on a different track than the normal track at home.
Richard Buery
Well, just, you know, I was young, in part because I skipped a grade early. When I was in third grade, you know, like I said East New York is a school, if you're in that neighborhood unfortunately, the local schools were just not delivering for the kids who live there. Certainly not when we were growing up. And so I went to Catholic school until the third grade. And, you know, my Catholic school is expensive.
But you know, my parents thought it was important that I had that opportunity, when and so the reason why I skipped a grade I skipped the fourth grade is because there was a middle school in Brooklyn, they're still in the middle school in Brooklyn called it three-three.
The Philippa Scholar Middle School for the gifted and talented, it was founded by this legendary African American educator, Miss Boyce who wanted to build a school. Loretta, you boys who wanted to build a school for gifted black and Latino students started in the fifth grade. My godfather taught there, you know, and then my father’s oldest friends, also from St. Gabriel's church. Dr. Roy Prescott, who passed away a few years ago, was a gifted musician, educator, so we knew it, we knew about the school and school started in fifth grade, I was in third grade. And they said if I could pass the entrance test I could get in so I passed the test in third grade and was able to get in. And you know, I've always been a pretty good test taker. And, you know, I've come to understand you know, not not necessarily a particular mark of intelligence or, or aptitude or anything but, but a good skill I have in the world which values tests, probably more than it should. But so I was able to get into 3-3, early. And so the combination of those two things meant that I graduated from high school a little bit earlier. Right younger than most of my friends from school, I'll rub that in, but the older we get, the less it seems to matter.
Alan Fleischmann
But you can still claim that your luck when they hit threshold years, you can claim your high school If you're not sure, what's it like to turn 50? What's it like to turn 40? And when you were looking at you went to Harvard? Curious was that like, and you went to Stuyvesant they were advising you where to go? Did you know where you wanted to go? Was there, you know, and kind of a big question mark, because you were looking at several options, what made you decide to do the Harvard route?
Richard Buery
Well, you know, I'd be lying if I thought it was particularly thoughtful. One of the good things about going to a school like Stuyvesant, the expectations are high. And I think, you know, that's, that's not even the game. For most students. We're a community around what's expected. And so it certainly wasn't unusual for people at Stuyvesant to apply to the Harvard's and MIT's of the world.
And so for me, my older sister went to UPenn. So, you know, I sort of had a role model. You know, I was also fortunate to have a role model of an older sister who had gone to Ivy League school, and I had a god-sister who had gone to Princeton. Now, they're both a couple of years older than me, another one of the Panamanian immigrant family, too, that I grew up with. And so it didn't seem like going to a place like Harvard didn't seem out of reach, right, because I, you know, I had these two role models, at least, would go into great schools. And so in high school it wasn't that I was in, you know, the big, relatively big schools, but it wasn't the most intense counseling experience. Bar, I remember sitting with my counselor and saying,
Well, you think about applying to Harvard to just sort of have a throw in and she was like, Yeah, go for it. Which is great, because a lot of you know, I say it wasn't necessarily the most intensive college counseling. I know lots of folks who have very different experiences, who if they had told their counselor the plight of Harvard, they would have been told, don't that's not for you, that's beyond your reach. You know, my wife talks about being told to apply to state schools, not being encouraged to apply to private schools and sort of not having those expectations for bright Black students. So I guess I would say that I was lucky that they didn't talk me out of it, that they said, Why not go for it. And I was lucky that I was in a small community where applying for the top schools was common. And I had a network in terms of my older sister and my god-sister, who's gonna show that yeah, the schools are for us. And you can go there and thrive there and be happy there. You know, Stuyvesant’s it's a funny placement we had, I think, in my class, you know, I forget the number. Exactly. But over 30 kids from my high school class went to Harvard. My year, I think there were six kids in my homeroom who went to Harvard that year. So it didn't feel unusual, given my school environment.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing. It says a lot about Stuyvesant students. So you went to Harvard, you majored in African American studies, share a little bit about that choice. And I'm curious whether by then when you are ready, you know, focusing on social justice issues, leadership issues, you know, I can see the beginnings of what became a big life journey.
Richard Buery
Yeah, so African American Studies, so I didn't start off with an African American Studies major, I started off as a social studies major, which is just not to be the social studies, you remember from middle school, it's an interdisciplinary major, where you study economics and history and politics. And I was majoring in social studies until I think we declared a major at the end of your freshman year, you have to apply to be in that major, so within the major for two years. And then during my junior year of college, it was announced that next the following year, which would have been my senior year. There was a revitalization of the African American Studies Department, Henry Louis Gates, who people now know from Finding Your Roots, but, you know, preeminent scholar of African American studies of African American literature was coming to Harvard to lead the department to lead the Afro American State Department. Spike Lee was going to come to teach a course on contemporary African American Cinema. Anthony Appiah, who was now at NYU, a renowned black philosopher, was coming.
And so there was sort of this buzz and energy around African American Studies. But it was also the case that because it was both an NGO and African American Studies, it was going to be impossible to take any of these classes unless you are an AfroAm Major. And so I like looking at my transcript, my classes. I had just enough, I had enough courses that would count toward the AfroAm major and make sure that if I switched majors, I could graduate on time and take these classes. So I took that, I think there was a four person seminar on black philosophy with the permanent preeminent philosophers, Anthony Appiah took a 15 person seminar. With Skip Gates, I took a course on black film with Spike Lee and had this really amazing experience.
But it was a little bit serendipitous. Because all the people came to the schools. And it was also I think, I don't know that I would say it was really connected to this, but it was also part of coincided with my own personal journey of sort of exploring racial identity and what it meant to be Black and what that meant to me and what it meant to be a member of the Black community. And, and sort of it was, you know, I didn't plan it that way. But it was actually given that I think the personal journey I was on was a really wonderful way to sort of spend my senior year of college and the intro to social justice. I mean absolutely, I mean, you know, it's funny, because we use the language now, but I wouldn't have used it, I wouldn't have described it in terms of social justice or leadership or any other things when I was in college.
But yeah, again, just by serendipity, like freshman year, I am, a friend of mine asked me to join her to volunteer at an after school program and the housing project in Roxbury. And so I did, and I started going and just fell in love with it. And, you know, by the end of my freshman year, I was going, we were going four days a week, hanging out with these kids. tutoring them, helping them with homework, reading books, we would take field trips on Saturdays, you know, the New England Aquarium, the, you know, the Franklin Park Zoo, you know, typically really, just for the love of this neighborhood. And when I came back, after my freshman year of college, after having gone back to New York, and working in New York for the summer, came back. And you know, when I went to see the kids, I was really excited to go back to Mission Hill houses. And I remember like it was yesterday, the first day back sophomore year. Oh, “what did you guys do all summer?” and then having to say that they hadn’t done anything, it's just hanging out, not doing anything last summer, and wound up being inspired, and with a few friends started a summer camp for kids that we started that next summer, where we had I think about 30 kids that first summer, we'd wind up going to about 60 or 70 Kids and ran a summer program for them. And my first experience with social entrepreneurship, though, again, I wouldn't have used those words, experience with a leader because I had to, you know, organizing friends and organizing resources and convincing parents that they should let these college students be responsible for their kids during the summer and you know, getting the local housing Boston housing authority to give us apartment so that we can live in the housing development for the summer. So we could be in closer community with the kids and getting I think Harvard Med School and Wentworth Institute just to give us classroom space and try and run the curriculum and raising money from local businesses and figuring out how do you organize camping trips and getting my parents to like, let me bring 30 kids to sleep in every corner of our tiny row house in East New York for a week so that I can so that we could explore New York City together like these really great experiences, right? Where I'd learned a lot about what it meant to organize and lead and inspire and bring resources together. And so yeah, that's sort of where I sort of got the bug for this work. And again, you know,--
Alan Fleischmann
I mean, that’s true entrepreneurship honestly, we call it social entrepreneurship. But the way you describe you had an idea, you created the, you know, the mission, the vision, you brought the people together, you got the funding. I mean, it's no different than if you're raising money from a VC or venture capitalist. I mean, you came up with what you called donations, I would call it investment. And you go and you did what any great entrepreneur would do. And you know who that She has a vision that sees it through.
Richard Buery
Well, yeah. And a lot of it is also just being with the team that the first thing is like, who was our crew? So I say that like I do that myself. I mean, they were the crew of us, we did that. But I mean, I think probably the biggest lesson I learned from any of that is that your success is really a function of who are you doing the work with? But yeah, it was a fantastic experience and fantastic developmental experience. And as I was saying before, I also think very much as I was going through my own journey, growing up…
Alan Fleischmann
By the way, when you went to Zimbabwe at some point also.
Richard Buery
Well, after college.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah. You went through this church at the same time, you were kind of…
Richard Buery
Yeah, you know, having grown up in this low income neighborhood, but also feeling very privileged. Right, when I grew up there, you know, because, you know, a great access to schools and a parents who knew how to navigate New York City, got me to this great middle school. So I always had this sort of sense of dissonance because I was in a community where most children did not have great outcomes. And I was getting to go to Stuyvesant and have these incredible outcomes. And that was really exacerbated when I went to Harvard, which sort of the extreme, you know, which is not, you know, Harvard might have been normal for Stuyvesant, but it wasn't so normal or typical for East New York.
And I think, finding that community finding Mission Hill and finding that community really helped me find my personal purpose, because it sort of gave meaning which frankly, had felt very uncomfortable, like why would I having these experiences which lead to privileges and opportunities when other kids who I grew up with just as smart, just as talented, just as great kids just weren't having the same opportunities. The opportunity to give back in this way to sort of use privilege to drive change for kids that I really have come to really love was also a very important, I think, part of my own personal development.
Alan Fleischmann
Actually, it tells me that you thought the whole experience of being in college, I was like, it was amazing. I mean, you spent your four years pretty actively involved doing this stuff? Were there mentors there that you would pull out and say, looking back in your life that influenced you? I know you are a great mentor and what Robin Hood does is so much about mentoring in your career. But before that, I'm just curious if your parents were mentors, but are there mentors that were at Harvard, too, that are joining them?
Richard Buery
Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the most important, named Greg Johnson. So Greg was the Executive Director of Phillips Brooks House, which is sort of the undergraduate public service organization and that umbrella, the organization through which I had done with after school programming one day, during that summer program. He is just someone who always encouraged and inspired and treated me like an adult. You know, we had adult conversations, which, you know, for a 17,18 year old kid, meant a lot. And so he was a mentor. And then his husband became a very important mentor, his husband Ken Reeves, who I didn't know as well when I was a little bit but wound up after college wound up working for him and running his campaign. He was mayor of Cambridge.
We think at the time the only black gay mayor in the country, I'm pretty sure or only openly gay black mayor in the country. Greg and Ken are both two very, very important figures in my life. I think about the students I went to school with, who were sort of doing work that inspired me at the time. You know, one of the guys I started the mission Hill summer program with with a couple of years ahead of me name is Henry Fernandez, who he was like, his last year with my first year at Harvard, and somebody who just poured a lot of commitment and focus and and confidence to to work and there were other people like that. In Phillips Brooks House, my year a little bit older, a little bit younger, who I really looked up to as people who are taking the opportunity of Harvard seriously to drive good work. And you know, there are professors and classes that I loved as well, I have to say to my eye, you know, if I could go back in time, I probably would have paid a little bit more attention to the schoolwork. I mean, I was a perfectly fine student, but I spent so much of my energy on Mission Hill, I was really much more focused on that than I was on being a Harvard student most days. But I think about some of the classes that I took, and some of the classes I could have taken like this survey course on evolutionary biology with EO Wilson, who's, you know, I don't know if you appreciate this opportunity at the time, it was a fascinating class that I took senior year, I thought, well, if I had taken this class freshman year, I might have been a major, I might have majored. And it was just fascinating. But, you know, I didn't definitely take advantage of all the different places and spaces where you can. I just want to learn about, you know, Art and Florence and this idea, that there’s nothing you can't take a class and explore. But yeah, I think the role models were probably less academic role models, but more role models who were important to what would become my career.
Alan Fleischmann
You clearly did very well. But what you're saying is, you wish you would spend more time just absorbing and relishing and learning at the classes and not being so involved outside the classroom. But clearly, you didn't suffer grade wise, because you went on to law school. And so I'm curious what made you jump? Zimbabwe was somewhere in the middle of that but you attended Yale Law School right after Harvard, I think, right?
Richard Buery
No, no, I took a few years off.
Alan Fleischmann
Or you did okay. What did you do with the path in between?
Richard Buery
So I spent a year in Zimbabwe, and I spent a year working for Ken Reeves. Again, it was a mayor of Cambridge running his reelection campaign, then working head office.
Alan Fleischmann
I'm now looking at your career. Having a law degree makes such perfect sense. You know, and and again, looking back in your life, when you see all the things you did that lead up to where you are now, and probably all makes sense, too. But I'm curious. At that point, you also clerked for a judge, Judge Walker, John Walker, of the US Court of Appeals, you worked as a staff attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice. So you really pivoted then, but I'm curious. It was your Yale experience, like every other Yale Law School experience, or like Harvard, you kind of did your own thing, kind of build your own missions?
Richard Buery
Yeah, I guess, it's a good question. I feel like, um, I guess I would say there are lots of Yale Law students who are doing their own things and walking their own path. And I, I think so, feel like my Yale Law experience was pretty typical. But the great thing about a place like that, is that you know, you've got 200 students in every class or so. But 200 Interesting students who are doing everything different than the people who're going to work in private equity or politics or, or teachers or started schools or, became traditional lawyers, right, you sort of have the gamut. And, yeah, like I, you know, it's you sort of look at career and, you know, I'm sure you experienced this, you know, younger professionals ask you, we talk about your career path, and like, I find it very difficult to give any advice because there was no rhyme or reason to any of this, like, none of this is planned, none of us have been planned. It's just sort of even going to law school was not part of some logical plan.
You know, I went to law school because I got in and didn't have it seemed like a pretty good option. Yeah, you don't have another plan. And wound up loving law school and had great experiences, great mentors there, met incredible people, including my wife and went to law school with no interest in being a lawyer, no intention of being a lawyer. I went there to spend three years you know, hopefully, biding my time learning some things building a credential, I figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up, I knew that wasn't a lawyer, where I wanted to do was to do the work I've been doing and Mission Hill and to do that work in New York and I wanted to work in the community and support children and families in the neighborhood and build relationships and build organizations that can help people achieve their greatest potential.
I thought that going to law school without another you know, I don't know a grad school for that, right. I didn't even know something like a social work school I didn't know existed. I didn't know that was a thing one could do, and law school seems like a place where it can do that. And so again, I applied to just a couple of law schools. And I wanted to be back in New York. So I applied to NYU, Columbia then I applied to Yale because it is with Yale and you know, the era of Bill and Hillary Clinton had a lot of pizzazz. I had a couple of folks I knew from Harvard had gone there. We're doing interesting things. And so it seemed like a good place to go.
Richard Buery
But one did. Yeah. Which is why I did some law stuff, even though I hadn't planned to be a lawyer and tried for a little while.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, you clerked for a pretty amazing judge as well. And then you were a staff attorney. How long was all that before you kind of realized…
Richard Buery
Just under two years so you know, clerkships are a year, I was at the Brennan Center for less than a year. During my summers, I also worked in law, I spent my first summer working at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund doing capital punishment work. I spent my second summer split between the DC Public Defender Service and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights where I was going to write stuff I had done a lot of clinical work when I was in school, working with helping students with disabilities get proper placements, working on a prisoner's rights case. So I did really interesting stuff in law school and found it fascinating, and had some great professors.
They're really amazing professors who became real mentors. And so I clerked, because I, you know, I thought I would maybe try being a lawyer, I clerked for the John Walker, Federal Court of Appeals in New York at the time, did that for a year and then spent about 10 months at the Brennan Center for Justice, which at the time with a relatively young, public interest law firm affiliated with NYU, where I did a lot of work in the areas of campaign finance reform. Voting, some voting rights for former prisoners, actually a really interesting case working on essentially environmental racism in Louisiana, which was a fascinating case. And I loved it, you know, the work was good, but ultimately, just not what I wanted to do. I definitely didn't want to be a lawyer, even a lawyer from good people finding good causes,
Alan Fleischmann
You know, fairly early in your professional journey, you became a co-founder, Executive Director of iMentor, which I've gotten to know through the Bezos family and other folks who've gotten very involved. It pairs mentors to first generation students of historically marginalized communities or backgrounds with mentors. And when I think of you I do think of you as being a great mentor yourself. How did that come up? How did you create this idea? I didn't realize you were the founder, for example, and so…
Richard Buery
Not, not my idea at all. What I mean is how it really came about was John Griffin, who is for people listening as a legendary hedge fund manager in New York, he's one of the football tiger cubs who worked for Julian Robertson at Tiger management and launched his own hedge fund. And he was someone who was always very interested in giving back. And he was himself a mentor on this group called Student Sponsor Partnerships, which is a nonprofit where essentially you, Mitzi, paid for students tuition, and you mentor them and heat up a mentee in the program. And what he was finding was that he, you know, they would have these in person meetings, and it was flat. Like, the kid didn't know what to say to him. He didn't know what to say to the kid that they didn't engage with, but they started emailing and this was, you know, earlier day, that earlier day, that email, and he found that this kid who he couldn't really connect with in person, they would have really interesting conversations, over email, and it became easier for them to communicate.
And he thought about all of his peers on Wall Street, who would also like to give back but who were frankly daunted by the idea of having to commit to going to the South Bronx once a week, because they're building their careers and their trading all day. And he thought that there was the potential to unleash the talent and compassion of people around the city. If we could create a way to connect them with young people who would benefit from mentors. But in this way that would make it easier for people who are volunteering, maybe even easier for the people who are studying, but then it's also a platform and tools to think about. But once you can make those connections, what kind of connections do at the time, very much focused on technology education, right, and thinking about how this could be a platform for teaching and bridging the digital divide. Over time, we thought more and more about how it could be a platform for helping students on the pathway to college, given the the gaps in college counseling, you know, often 400 students to one college counselor, but whether each of those students can have a college champion, someone who focused on them, helping them navigate process, helping to inspire and connect in the same way that you know, my college counselor was able to encourage me.
And so that was a journey of I met her so I wasn't my idea. But I'm not gonna tell you the whole story. But essentially, I met John I and a friend Matt Klein, met John through one of John's analysts, had a brother who Matt and I went to law school with. And you know, Matt didn't want to be a lawyer. I didn't want to be a lawyer, we both have kind of come out of this work, similar work, working in housing developments working with kids and families and sort of this work and then we met John and wound up working with them together. I think now 25 years later, I'm really proud of the work iMentor does. It is now a national organization, helping thousands of children every year.
Alan Fleischmann
Amazing, actually, and I know it does when I went to their gala a few times, and it's a packed house. I mean, it's amazing. And just like when you go to Robin Hood events, and you leave, completely inspired. It's incredible. I didn't know that connection, it’s extraordinary. And you also co-founded another organization Groundwork. And there's the executive director, and then President and CEO of Children's Aid Society . Tell us a little about those experiences highlighted from that work and, and how they got to be like, you got that you became Deputy Mayor of New York under Mayor de Blasio. I mean, you've, you know, it's incredible. You can speak easily from what you do.
Richard Buery
Yeah, but yeah, it's like, it's all pretty random, right? So yeah, you know, from Groundwork, I mean, the Groundwork was essentially me trying to do the work that I had done in Mission Hill and Boston and Roxbury, and do it home, do it at home in Brooklyn. And do it now with the benefit of a little bit more actual experience about what it takes to build a strong organization. And what does it take to actually help connect the young people in their families to the resources they need to thrive in school, in college and in life. And I was blessed to start groundwork and rank groundwork for several years, working in public housing projects in East New York and in Bed Stuy. In Canarsie, in Brooklyn. Robin Hood was actually one of our first funders, and a very critical funder in launching that work. And what we know working at Robin Hood, I started working at Groundwork, you know a small organization with a budget of about, I think, probably about $6 million. And had been there for about eight years and sort of hanging my mind that like 10 years of my window, like I'm going to do it for 10 years and then do something else. And that was reached out by a search firm an executive search firm and asked me, you know, “would you throw your hat in the ring for the Children's Aid Society?”, and by contacting groundwork with about eight years old and talking about deciding what had been, what's probably 150 years old, 160 years old. Groundwork’s budget was like $6 million, and Children’s Aid Society's budget was like $120 or $130 million.
Going from like 200, staff to 2000 Children’s Aid Society had always been run by social workers. I'm not a social worker. It has always been run by people who have spent their lives in the organization. So like the person who was leaving had worked there for 30 years. He'd replaced someone who'd worked there for 30 or 40 years and replace someone who worked there for 30 or 40 years. All had been white men. There's a lot of reasons why I was not like a typical candidate. But the search firm saw something in me like, you know, the way I like to do these searches will bring them eight or nine of the candidates is what they think they're looking for. And we'll bring them one or two people that they wouldn't start to have thought of, but who we think can have an impact. And for some reason the board chose me and I spent four and a half years running Children's Aid Society, really proud of the work we've done there, actually further would have stayed there for 15 or 20 years, but wound up being recruited by Bill de Blasio who had just been elected mayor to come join the administration.
Alan Fleischmann
Was that a tough decision to go in? Or is that like, Was that a dream of yours at all?
Richard Buery
No, it was not a dream. And it was a very tough decision.
Alan Fleischmann
It was a tough decision.
Richard Buery
Yeah, it was in particular that I didn't have any aspiration to do it. It was a very tough decision.
Alan Fleischmann
Explain a little bit what it means to be deputy mayor because it's a unique position in New York.
Richard Buery
So every city hall operates differently. Bill, Mayor de Blasio has four deputy mayors. And so you can imagine the Deputy Mayor's have portfolios. That's why the portfolio of services that approach city agencies and offices and I was leading, typically related to communities in need of support. So like the Department of Youth and Community Development Department for the Aging, the work that I was really recruited to do, though, the main task was to launch our Pre-K for All expansion. And when the mayor ran, before he was mayor, his primary campaign promise was to sort out two things that were essential to his campaign promise. One is to provide free full day preschool for every four year old in New York City. And he promised to do that in a year and a half. And provide free after school programs to every middle schooler in New York City. And so part of my job was to drive those two initiatives. And Pre K, it was daunting, you know, there were 19,000 Kids and full day Pre K at the time, we estimated that there'd be a demand for about 70,000 seats if they were available. And so we had to go from 19,000 to 70,000 seats in the year and a half. We had to do it very high quality, we were committed to seats that would not only be safe, but that would support young people's cognitive and emotional development, seats that would be programmed that would have the highest level highest levels of quality, we had to find all these classrooms, you know, thousands of classrooms, hire thousands of teachers, educate families about what this was, and then make it easier to and then make it easy to find and just explain that this whole new new is basically like adding a whole grade to the public school system, you know, in a little over a year, and a number of kids that are bigger than the size of entire school districts and cities like Boston that are other subjects.
So it was a big massive undertaking, and that wound up being that and that was the new thing that got me to join the opportunity to be a part of making history. And we were successful. You know that after that year and a half. Every four year old who wanted a seat was offered a seat and we had 68,000 kids enrolled in pre K. Before I left, we'd started our expansion to three year olds that were there for a term that could do amazing things. All that work. We got to launch the first Department of Veterans Services so the department focused on supporting the needs of veterans. I launched the city's Office of Minority Women Business Enterprises, which I supervised overseeing aggressive goals for childcare expansion. Working on issues related to people with disabilities and aging New Yorkers. Got into the city’s main leads into CUNY New York City's 250,000 Student higher education system. Really, I'd say for something that I kind of had to be dragged into, you know, the most amazing, but really amazing four years of professional experience and impact.
Alan Fleischmann
So you would do it all over again?
Richard Buery
I would. It was hard for a bunch of reasons personally and professionally. It was not an easy thing to do. It's something that I said no to twice before I finally said yes. I was really quite daunted by all of it, daunted by the personal challenge. We didn't live in the city. So I had to move. We were in the suburbs and had to move back to the city, pull our kids out of school and sell our house, which was really likely to change our lives. I loved my job at Children’s Aid Society, I knew I was good at it. I didn't know if I'd be able to do this. This was asking me to do something I had not done, I had not worked in city government, New York City government, I spent, you know, a year working in Cambridge, Massachusetts government, which is not quite the same scale. And being asked to lead, like the signature initiative of the mayor, high visibility, which everybody thought was going to fail, and which I really had no idea how to do it. And so it was, it was really scary. It was really scary.
Alan Fleischmann
And you work closely with the first lady and her initiative. And yeah. Yeah. And you so you were working with her and her Thrive New York, I think, in New York. And they said, What, which really dealt with mental health challenges, you know, new revamped offices that frankly, have been name-only they weren't having impact. I mean, there's a lot, a long list of things that, Rich, people credit you for doing. And that window that you work there, there's a legacy steal, I think, from the work that you've done.
Richard Buery
Well, like I said, I feel really blessed. And like everything else, you know, the person whose name is on the leading with department gets way too much credit, right, like he does. And that's not false modesty, like, you know, you know, ultimately what I can, what I will take credit for is sort of helping to organize amazing teams, who went out and did amazing things when New Yorkers
Alan Fleischmann
In 2021, you became the CEO of Robin Hood Foundation. I'm curious because of your background, and leading so many of these organizations being involved in so many critical national and local organizations, how many people have come along with you. I know other people now, if I walk in the door and Robin Hood, I wouldn't be some people who've worked with Rich over many different parts of his career. You leave your legacy behind me anytime you go?
Richard Buery
A little of both there are a couple of I look around the office now, you know, I mentioned Matt Klein, the guy who I started iMentor with. He's our chief programming impact officer. So if I look around the officer, there are a few people who have come with me. But the great thing about, you know, doing this work in the city, New York City is both of it, both the universe and it's also a small town all at the same time. And so the people who've been there people here who maybe I didn't bring them in, but who I've worked with in different contexts, over the course of years on different projects, because now the people who have been in New York for the fighting the fight for children, for families, for those who are excluded from opportunity, winds up being a small, universe of people, and you get to interact with them and engage with them, over years.
Just the other night, I was walking down the street and ran into two gentlemen, one of whom used to run a large child welfare agency in New York, one of whom was the former deputy commissioner of children's service, I had not seen either of them in years.
There are people in various parts of my life, where we're major code, co conspirators and things we're trying to do. And part of what I love about New York is that New Yorkers would feel good to know, and I'm sure other cities have the same infrastructure New Yorkers would feel really good to know, happy and proud to know that there are people here who spent their entirely lives whether in government or in business, or in nonprofits, or in social service organizations who spent their entire lives really just spending all their time and little time thinking about how do we make this city work for everybody. And really inspirational people, it'll never get a billboard, they'll never, you know, nobody's gonna write a book about them. But like, you hate to see this. And if they hadn't been here doing the work.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, when I think about, you know, you know, the people who devote their lives to transformation and change, and you write that up and get the headlines, but they're, their legacy is one life at a time, but you leave with confidence, but you're also leaving with enormous amount of humility, which, you know, which is very much what I described you, I think of you as being a very confident leader, but someone who, who leads with humility and gratitude, and, by example, when you came to Robin Hood, you you came in Wes Moore who had just left who's running for governor now. He's the Governor of Maryland.
Richard Buery
I wonder what happened to that guy?
Alan Fleischmann
He went off to kind of an obscure life. He's still a very big champion of Robin Hood. And he certainly was a great CEO too. You know, you had no, you were you with all your background and all your accomplishments. You know, it was the perfect choice by everybody's measure. I mean, you mentioned John Griffin earlier, he's been very active in Robin Hood as well. You know, some legendary investors, philanthropists, Dina Powell McCormack, Paul Tudor Jones, the list goes on, and really extraordinary people who didn't just help create Robin Hood, but have stayed with Robin Hood and probably as passionate of a board as anybody could ever have.
And you've got a pretty, you know, all in, leaning in kind of board, I imagine even different from some of the organizations who either co-founded or lead. I'm curious what that was like. I also, as I described earlier, you know, many ways your venture philanthropists and I noted that Robin Hood describes their model as venture philanthropy, Your journey has been all about that. So it seems like a natural fit. So tell a little bit what it meant to you. You've obviously in many ways, you did not come to a league of strangers. And you had been a recipient of Robin Hood, you know, grants of your paths. How big a choice was that? But again, you look like you're at a central casting, according to the media rich, you're taking a job.
Richard Buery
I mean, I don't know from central casting. But I will say that I really should just pinch myself every morning because it really is a dream job for me. Because I love New York and at the end of the day, this is where I want to have where I want to focus my energy and my impact. Because this place does this work that I really believe in. And if you said like it's been critical for my career, like, was talking about growing earlier, like Robin Hood, I think was a third organization to give rock Groundwork and grant, I can't overstate how important that was to our viability, when I could go out and tell other funders that Robin Hood just wanted to check for $250,000. And you know, how rigorous and thoughtful they have Robin Hood? So if they're gonna give us if they believe in us, you know, why shouldn't you believe in us? And that, that sales pitch is a very effective sales pitch in New York. And one that we take seriously. You know, it's one of the reasons why we are so thoughtful about our grant practices, because we know that our grants have meaning beyond the money.
They provide the hidden meaning behind this direct support that we provide is a big part of our grant making practice. They have meaning because it's a, it's a seal of approval, of rigor, and impact and management that we know that grantees can use out in the world. So I feel very lucky, following in some huge footsteps, not only Wes, who, you know, the friend that, you know, I remember when he came to Robin Hood, and being so excited for his vision and excited to have him here. And he really did deliver and I think in a lot of ways, like I'm taking up the ring of the and a lot of the work that he did, or the place that he pushed Robin Hood and moving it forward. Even before west you know, our founding Director, David Saltzman was Director here at NSA for 20 plus years, really built and conceived this place in so many ways from scratch and remained very close and involved and remains a mentor and a counselor. And so, you know, for the very lucky that the place feels like home and a lot of different, you know, only worked for two years. It feels like home in a number of ways. There are program officers here who were my program officers when I was a grantee years ago. They are board members here, like John and others who've been donors to things that I've worked on over the years. And then investors and their predecessors here who I looked up to before ever knowing I would take on their job. And so being here doing this work in this place in the city really did feel like I certainly won some kind of lottery.
Alan Fleischmann
It turns out that we have it's really the test of limiting the impact of Robin Hood to because the magnitude of the fundraising is always the many people's focus when we have your Gala. It's amazing what you raise in one night. You know, and for many people in the investment world, it becomes our leading philanthropy, you know, and they're their biggest vocal or being the biggest public example of their philanthropy. But it's the work that you do in education. It's the impact. It's what you're describing that it's done, what it's done. There's a big mountain challenge called New York City and you've been an example nationally. Tell us a little bit about your impact here.
Richard Buery
Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, Robin Hood's approach is pretty simple. We raised money from New Yorkers, not just New Yorkers, people living across the country in the world who care about New York, we raise money. And we invest it in the highest impact poverty fighting organizations in New York, to identify leaders in your organization that are on the frontline of the fight against poverty. We build models to evaluate their impact. So it's not about saying that we're working hard. It's about understanding what results are you driving for people in poverty and those results? Results, they're connected to long term social mobility.
So if your as job training program or a food delivery program, or a school or program for people returning home from incarceration, are you delivering results consistently that we know if we deliver those results, that people are in that program are going to be more likely to avoid negative outcomes and to achieve positive outcomes, ultimately reflected in their earning for that they build stabilized for themselves and their family for generations. Like that's what we do. And not only do we find those effective organizations, and we support them with cash, with management assistance, everything from helping to figure out real estate to build a school building, if you're a school or the renovate your health clinic, if you're a health clinic, management assistance, Financial Counseling, Advising fundraising assessment, that board placement, placing people on their boards, really building strong organization that can drive a test of time.
We also invest in innovation. So new leaders who don't have that fully formed evidence yet, but they have an idea. And we have reason to believe both because the idea is sound and based on evidence, but also because the leader has the potential to be effective. We also make big bets on new ideas. And we work with government to take the ideas that we're seeing are having an impact, and to try to bring them to scale. You know, last year, typically, I think last year, we distributed over $130 million in grants, making a lot of money. But there are 2 million people living in poverty in New York City right now. It's a lot of money, which is not enough. New York City's budget, by contrast, is over $100 billion New York State's budget of over $200 billion.
The question is that we can help the government, state government, enact policies that are to move people out of poverty, adopt programs to help people out of poverty, we can have an impact, even beyond what our direct grant making can provide. And so part of what we do is we sort of say if we give a great example of talking about the City University of New York before, the University of New York has a program called CUNY ASAP, which has been shown to double graduation rates for community college students. CUNY students at CUNY faced so many obstacles, and the graduation rates are tragically low. This was a program that we funded with private dollars. We funded an evaluation by MDRC that showed if you do some relatively straightforward things, providing transportation money, book money, helping them choose classes, intervening when people are at risk of dropping out, you can double the graduation rate. That program that we funded privately, has now been adopted by the city to tunes of hundreds of million dollars of investments as a national model for communities over the country.
So part of what we try to do is we don't we don't want to just invest in proof of concept with a program that's serving 500 people, we then want to work with public policymakers to say “Why can't every person have what these people in this program are getting?”. And that's a big part of our mission, too. We've invested over $3 billion in New York City since we started. As I said, we've also during the City's crises we've run we've raised funds, after Superstorm Sandy, 9/11, during the pandemic, to provide direct support to families who are in desperate need in the midst of a crisis. We bring government, business and philanthropist together in partnership with the community giving voice to the people who are living in poverty to hear their solutions. And we drive dollars to programs that don't just make us feel good as a way to make it feel good. But programs that gives us confidence that they're going to actually change lives in measurable and meaningful ways.
Alan Fleischmann
And in our last minute left and I knew we'd be more than an hour. You know, for those who are listening, we have a lot of people who are aspiring CEOs, are CEOs, aspiring donors, are donors. But there are a lot of people who are trying to figure out how they can create a life of purpose and impact. And they'll do it in the private sector, they'll do government service, they'll do it, you know, in civil society, and they may do all the above. I've had the pleasure of working and interacting in all sectors. But for those who are looking to kind of bring that venture philanthropy, kind of mentality to their life, and either in their part time life as a donor, or in their full time life as a leader, how optimistic are you about that space? And how much would you encourage people to engage either philanthropically or community leadership, or like you, in actual day to day leadership,
Richard Buery
Just, you know, my minute version of the answer just to steal from Nike is just to do it. The problems we have, as a country, are too big for any one person, for any one institution, for any one sector. Like government's not going to solve our program problems, but individual’s is not going to solve our programs' problems. Nonprofit is not gonna solve our programs, what will solve our problems is all those people, all those sectors, all institutions coming together, and all those institutions, government, businesses, nonprofits, faith based community, wherever it is, it's all just groups of people. So I guess what I would say is just do it. Get involved, I think the worst thing you can do, when you look at the end, look, it's human. Tonight, I feel the same way I get the same way, like you look at the problems of the world is so overwhelming. It's so overwhelming.
The news today, Russia, Ukraine, the border, Israel, Gaza is so overwhelming. But you gotta start somewhere, you don't have to start by saying, I'm going to become Mother Teresa, I'm going to give up everything I have, I'm going to move to the most challenging place of Earth and spend 24, you don't have to start that way, find a way to fit in. If it’s at your company, give more money, get your company to give money to things that matter. Get your company and think about its practices. You join the social impact group at your work, join the port, the affinity group that your organization and your company, get your company to think about its mission differently. If you're a company that is headquartered in New York, and you sell widgets, yeah, you gotta care about selling widgets, but your company should care about the education system. Because somebody had to design the widget, somebody’s got to make them and somebody's going to buy them. And then that's going to be possible if you don't have a city that is vibrant. So wherever you are, like find out, find a way to give whatever you're doing.
Now, you can do twice as much, then you can do and so I just think if you if you start by thinking about the scope of the problem, and if you start by thinking about the people who are like, have devoted every part of their lives to this work, that can feel overwhelming, and it can stop you from having the impact that you can have. Because again, it takes all sectors, it takes all kinds of people, we need people to write the checks, people to spend the checks. So I don't know if that answered your question, but I am optimistic. It's really about I think just started looking around you. Start from there, get educated and build from there, and you'll stop there. But you don't have to go from zero to 100.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. Well, this has been Leadership Matters with an amazing guest today on Sirius XM. This is Alan Fleischman with Richard Buery, you are a great role model. And you are tenacious as I said Buery and fury. I think there's a great thing there. You don't give up. And I hope that all the people who are listening who want to get involved with Robin Hood, they should. If they want to be inspired by Richard and his journey, they should as well. So I hope we'll have you back on the show again. You really are a great man.
Richard Buery
Great to talk to you. I appreciate it.
Alan Fleischmann
Wonderful, thank you. Let's make a party together in New York. I would love that very much.
Richard Buery
I would love to yeah.