Introducing the Santoro Family Foundation
Introducing the Santoro Family Foundation
Introducing the Santoro Family Foundation
Feb 1, 2026
6 min
read
Today, Rubi and I are launching the Santoro Family Foundation.
We started this foundation with a simple question: How can we help more people realize their potential?
We believe we can help by reducing barriers to learning, earning, and health, while honoring the initiative and agency of every individual. Imagine a world where every person is healthy, driven and motivated to dream big, and equipped with the skills and confidence to build a thriving future.
In that world, the focus shifts from basic survival to active creation. When people have the earning power to take care of themselves and the agency to build their own futures, the barriers that once seemed permanent start to fall. We are here to help close the gap between human potential and real-world opportunity.
Why We Aren't Waiting
The traditional playbook for philanthropy is to wait.
Wait until you’re older. Wait until you have more time. Wait until you’ve built more certainty, more infrastructure, more capital, and a perfectly formed plan based on you “having all the answers” later in life.
We’re taking a different approach.
Rubi and I don’t want to wait until we’re 70 to get to work. We want to start now and compound our impact over time, even if that means starting smaller and scrappier. Just recently, that meant spending a late night discussing the best shade of orange for our website.
The way we plan to approach this foundation is the same way I've approached building companies since I was young: with a startup mindset. You start, you learn, you iterate, you get better. You start small, often embarrassingly small, and before you know it, you look back after 10 years and wonder how you got here.
That’s how we plan to approach this foundation too.
Bringing a Startup Mindset to Philanthropy
As a family, we are huge believers in private companies as engines of progress. When a company becomes profitable, it becomes durable. It can keep solving a real problem for a long time without depending on donations or political cycles.
But philanthropy has a critical role to play too, especially when the goal is to unlock human potential by removing early barriers.
Sometimes a relatively small amount of support at the right moment can change a person’s trajectory. Sometimes belief and support are as powerful as capital. And sometimes the “system” simply doesn’t work evenly for everyone.
This informs how we plan to give. We aren't looking to fund bureaucracy; we are looking for the same rapid execution and unwavering resolve that drive successful startups. Our goal is to deploy our funds as close to the ground as possible, supporting founders and doers rather than just the systems around them.
Which brings us to what we’re most excited to launch first.
Our First Big Bet: The Young Entrepreneur Scholarship
The Santoro Family Foundation’s first large effort is the Young Entrepreneur Scholarship, built for high school students who are already building.
Students who have started a business. Created jobs. Taken on responsibility early. Done the hard thing when it would’ve been easier to wait.
This initiative is the purest expression of our "closest to the ground" philosophy: we are putting resources directly into the hands of student entrepreneurs. We will provide $40,000 scholarships to support a student founder’s education, and surround them with something just as important: a network of peers and business leaders who have shared their journey. Our hope is that these relationships will last a lifetime.
We’re currently building the infrastructure and completing the required regulatory and compliance approvals to officially launch this scholarship in Fall 2027, with the goal of awarding our first class of scholars in the 2027-2028 school year.
Why This Is Personal
For me, this mission is deeply personal. Entrepreneurs are the engine of the modern economy, and I know firsthand the massive benefits of starting a business at a young age.
I built my first computer at age 12 because I wanted to play video games. At 13, I started my first company. A few years later, while in high school, I founded FreeForums.org, because I wanted to help anyone create a free message board for their community.
I also learned something early on: running a company while you’re still a full-time student takes real sacrifice. Time, energy, social tradeoffs, and stress. The traditional education system isn’t designed for students who are also trying to create something real in the world at the same time. In fact, it often pushes against you.
But I believe this deeply: The earlier you start, the better.
It might not work the first time. That’s fine. You’ll learn faster than you ever could by waiting, and that learning compounds for the rest of your life. In a study I led at Wilbur Labs on Startup Failure, we found that 84% of founders who experienced failure said they would do it again. Think about that. After going through the collapse of a company—what many consider the worst professional thing imaginable—the vast majority would do it again. Failure isn't fatal; it’s just part of the process.
I was lucky to have people who gave me permission to build: parents who let me turn our basement into a workspace until 2 AM on a school night, teachers who encouraged it, and older mentors who fueled my ambition.
Not everyone gets that support. But we’ve seen what happens when you create even a small signal that entrepreneurship is possible.
In 2018, I created the Santoro Entrepreneurship Scholarship at Madeira High School for students already running a business. Something surprising happened: more students started businesses, not just because of the money, but because the scholarship made entrepreneurship feel real and attainable. Students realized not only was it possible to create a business during high school, but other students were actively doing it.
In 2023, we brought the same mission to the University of Cincinnati’s Lindner College of Business by creating the Santoro Family Fund for Entrepreneurship to support startup competitions and student-run businesses directly.
After nearly a decade running these two programs, and seeing all the incredible and creative businesses students are building, we’ve noticed one trend: When we recognize and support young founders, more founders show up.
The Road to 2027
While we work toward launching the Young Entrepreneur Scholarship in Fall of 2027, we plan to make a small number of strategic grants across our three focus areas:
Education — reducing barriers to learning and growth
Economic empowerment — helping people build skills, confidence, and earning power
Health — supporting access and outcomes that improve quality of life
When evaluating these grants, we aren't looking for the biggest logos; we are looking for small yet powerful organizations that we can help amplify. We want to find non-profit leaders who have the mission and resolve but need more fuel to scale their impact.
We’ll start with a focused set of efforts we can learn from quickly, then build from there.
Day One
We are treating the Santoro Family Foundation like any other startup. We are starting small, we are going to learn quickly, and we are going to iterate until we can maximize our impact. Thank you for being part of our day one.
— Phil and Rubi
Today, Rubi and I are launching the Santoro Family Foundation.
We started this foundation with a simple question: How can we help more people realize their potential?
We believe we can help by reducing barriers to learning, earning, and health, while honoring the initiative and agency of every individual. Imagine a world where every person is healthy, driven and motivated to dream big, and equipped with the skills and confidence to build a thriving future.
In that world, the focus shifts from basic survival to active creation. When people have the earning power to take care of themselves and the agency to build their own futures, the barriers that once seemed permanent start to fall. We are here to help close the gap between human potential and real-world opportunity.
Why We Aren't Waiting
The traditional playbook for philanthropy is to wait.
Wait until you’re older. Wait until you have more time. Wait until you’ve built more certainty, more infrastructure, more capital, and a perfectly formed plan based on you “having all the answers” later in life.
We’re taking a different approach.
Rubi and I don’t want to wait until we’re 70 to get to work. We want to start now and compound our impact over time, even if that means starting smaller and scrappier. Just recently, that meant spending a late night discussing the best shade of orange for our website.
The way we plan to approach this foundation is the same way I've approached building companies since I was young: with a startup mindset. You start, you learn, you iterate, you get better. You start small, often embarrassingly small, and before you know it, you look back after 10 years and wonder how you got here.
That’s how we plan to approach this foundation too.
Bringing a Startup Mindset to Philanthropy
As a family, we are huge believers in private companies as engines of progress. When a company becomes profitable, it becomes durable. It can keep solving a real problem for a long time without depending on donations or political cycles.
But philanthropy has a critical role to play too, especially when the goal is to unlock human potential by removing early barriers.
Sometimes a relatively small amount of support at the right moment can change a person’s trajectory. Sometimes belief and support are as powerful as capital. And sometimes the “system” simply doesn’t work evenly for everyone.
This informs how we plan to give. We aren't looking to fund bureaucracy; we are looking for the same rapid execution and unwavering resolve that drive successful startups. Our goal is to deploy our funds as close to the ground as possible, supporting founders and doers rather than just the systems around them.
Which brings us to what we’re most excited to launch first.
Our First Big Bet: The Young Entrepreneur Scholarship
The Santoro Family Foundation’s first large effort is the Young Entrepreneur Scholarship, built for high school students who are already building.
Students who have started a business. Created jobs. Taken on responsibility early. Done the hard thing when it would’ve been easier to wait.
This initiative is the purest expression of our "closest to the ground" philosophy: we are putting resources directly into the hands of student entrepreneurs. We will provide $40,000 scholarships to support a student founder’s education, and surround them with something just as important: a network of peers and business leaders who have shared their journey. Our hope is that these relationships will last a lifetime.
We’re currently building the infrastructure and completing the required regulatory and compliance approvals to officially launch this scholarship in Fall 2027, with the goal of awarding our first class of scholars in the 2027-2028 school year.
Why This Is Personal
For me, this mission is deeply personal. Entrepreneurs are the engine of the modern economy, and I know firsthand the massive benefits of starting a business at a young age.
I built my first computer at age 12 because I wanted to play video games. At 13, I started my first company. A few years later, while in high school, I founded FreeForums.org, because I wanted to help anyone create a free message board for their community.
I also learned something early on: running a company while you’re still a full-time student takes real sacrifice. Time, energy, social tradeoffs, and stress. The traditional education system isn’t designed for students who are also trying to create something real in the world at the same time. In fact, it often pushes against you.
But I believe this deeply: The earlier you start, the better.
It might not work the first time. That’s fine. You’ll learn faster than you ever could by waiting, and that learning compounds for the rest of your life. In a study I led at Wilbur Labs on Startup Failure, we found that 84% of founders who experienced failure said they would do it again. Think about that. After going through the collapse of a company—what many consider the worst professional thing imaginable—the vast majority would do it again. Failure isn't fatal; it’s just part of the process.
I was lucky to have people who gave me permission to build: parents who let me turn our basement into a workspace until 2 AM on a school night, teachers who encouraged it, and older mentors who fueled my ambition.
Not everyone gets that support. But we’ve seen what happens when you create even a small signal that entrepreneurship is possible.
In 2018, I created the Santoro Entrepreneurship Scholarship at Madeira High School for students already running a business. Something surprising happened: more students started businesses, not just because of the money, but because the scholarship made entrepreneurship feel real and attainable. Students realized not only was it possible to create a business during high school, but other students were actively doing it.
In 2023, we brought the same mission to the University of Cincinnati’s Lindner College of Business by creating the Santoro Family Fund for Entrepreneurship to support startup competitions and student-run businesses directly.
After nearly a decade running these two programs, and seeing all the incredible and creative businesses students are building, we’ve noticed one trend: When we recognize and support young founders, more founders show up.
The Road to 2027
While we work toward launching the Young Entrepreneur Scholarship in Fall of 2027, we plan to make a small number of strategic grants across our three focus areas:
Education — reducing barriers to learning and growth
Economic empowerment — helping people build skills, confidence, and earning power
Health — supporting access and outcomes that improve quality of life
When evaluating these grants, we aren't looking for the biggest logos; we are looking for small yet powerful organizations that we can help amplify. We want to find non-profit leaders who have the mission and resolve but need more fuel to scale their impact.
We’ll start with a focused set of efforts we can learn from quickly, then build from there.
Day One
We are treating the Santoro Family Foundation like any other startup. We are starting small, we are going to learn quickly, and we are going to iterate until we can maximize our impact. Thank you for being part of our day one.
— Phil and Rubi