Paul Rapoport

Who was Paul Rapoport?

Paul Israel Rapoport was an attorney and a co-founder of both the New York City Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Services Center and Gay Men's Health Crisis. The private foundation that bears his name is one of the oldest and largest LGBT-focused foundations in the country.

Rapoport attended P.S. 107 in New York City, the Horace Mann School and Cornell University. He graduated cum laude from Columbia University Law School in 1965, and later received an LL.M. in tax law from New York University School of Law.

Rapoport died of AIDS at New York University Medical Center in July 1987 at the age of 47. His estate of roughly $8 million was used to establish The Paul Rapoport Foundation, Inc., which at Rapoport's direction gives to LGBT and HIV/AIDS causes in the New York metropolitan area. In a press release dated July 6, 2009, the Foundation announced its intention to "bring its grantmaking operations to a close as of June 30, 2014 and cease operations entirely by June 30, 2015" in order to maximize its impact on grantees.