A South Florida Real Estate Couple Come Out of the Gates Strong With an Active New Foundation

The tech industry may have all the buzz, but the real estate sector remains one of the most robust engines of wealth creation in the country. Developers, builders, investors and property owners are among the nation’s richest people, and a growing number of them are turning to philanthropy.

Not too long ago, I wrote about the billionaire chairman and CEO of Related Group, Jorge Perez, and his family, whose multigenerational giving has touched South Florida and beyond. The Perez family’s most prominent philanthropic cause is Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), dedicated to collecting and exhibiting modern and contemporary international art.

As it turns out, other Related Group brass are also engaged in philanthropy. Consider Matt Allen, 58, executive vice president and chief operating officer. He and his wife Lisa Allen just launched their Matt and Lisa Allen Family Foundation a few months ago; it focuses on underserved youth across South Florida, providing access to education, healthcare, mentorship and other resources needed to thrive.

The Allens have been engaged in volunteering and philanthropy for some time, but decided to formalize their giving at the start of 2023, seeding it with their own funds and raising money within their networks. And they are already taking a very hands-on approach, a good example of a family that comes out of the philanthropic gates with a strong vision. I recently connected with the Allens to find out more about their work, their focus on South Florida, and what to expect from the family down the line.

A philanthropic start and real estate start

Born in California, Matt Allen came to South Florida when he was young, and in 1987, graduated from Barry University, a private Catholic university in Miami Shores, and earned his MBA from Florida International University in 1991. Over the course of nearly two and a half decades, Allen rose through the ranks of Related Group, a real estate behemoth that has built and managed over 100,000 condo and apartment residences, including the St. Regis Residences in Miami, SLS Marina Beach in Cancun, and V:House in São Paulo.

Allen grew up humbly, with several siblings, but he says he never was aware of being poor. He credits those early years for motivating his professional focus: “My mission in life was that I wanted to be very successful. But then I also wanted to give back,” Allen says.

In the midst of his career, Allen made it a priority to start getting involved in local organizations in and around his adopted hometown of Miami. He is a member of the foundation board for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Miami, where he ran their golf tournament for over a decade. He’s a former board member of the Dolphins Cancer Challenge, which benefits the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Research Center. The Allens, who’ve been married for 30 years, have three children, the oldest of whom is 24. The couple have been supportive of their children’s day schools, as well.

Now retired, Lisa Allen, a Coral Gables native and University of Florida alumna, worked in sales and marketing for a local security company. She’s been involved with the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and Habitat for Humanity. Allen says when it comes to involvement in their community, she likes to get her hands dirty. “I like to touch things, see things. We intimately know the organizations we’re involved with,” she says.

Bringing in the second generation and starting a foundation

As we’ve been reporting in our ongoing series on the many forms of family philanthropy, some family foundations gradually bring in the next generation. But other families bring in younger members right from the very start, making sure their children have skin in the game as soon as the foundation is launched. This has been the case with the Allens.

“You get to choose your friends, but you don’t choose your family. And if my children choose to be friends with each other, I remember thinking that, as a mother, that would be phenomenal,” Lisa Allen says. And the Allens hope that the family foundation serves as something that brings them all together.

To that end, the family has been working on shared volunteerism projects for years. In 2014, the couple’s oldest child cofounded “Scaring for Caring,” a 1950s-style haunted mansion fundraiser set up in the family’s backyard. Matt and Lisa Allen encouraged all the children to focus on raising money for a cause that they cared about. Ultimately, the Allen siblings rallied around raising money to help youth. The annual fundraising event continued throughout the kids’ high school years, with the eldest sibling passing the tradition on to her middle sibling, Isabella, who carried on the torch for a while. In 2018 alone, Scaring for Caring saw over 1,000 visitors and raised $370,000, donating those funds to Big Brothers Big Sisters, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and UHealth Jackson Children’s Care.

Eventually, the Allens decided to formalize all of this work through a foundation, bringing the family together even more closely. The Matt and Lisa Allen Foundation was established in the first quarter of 2023, and supports underserved youth across South Florida, focusing on the “the three pillars” of their work — education, healthcare and mentorship.

The Allens support Jackson Health Foundation, connected to Jackson Health System, one of the nation’s largest public health systems. Its Jackson Memorial Hospital serves as the primary teaching hospital of the University of Miami’s School of Medicine, which the Allens’ daughter is currently attending. “She’s committed to giving back,” Matt Allen says, noting that she’s learning a lot about health disparities, like the higher risk of certain cancers among African American women.

Their oldest daughter, meanwhile, has worked with the Crockett Foundation, a youth-focused charity founded by brothers Henri and Zack Crockett, who both played in the NFL for a time. Matt Allen and Henri connected on the Orange Bowl Committee, where they both helped with the mission of generating tourism for South Florida through the annual football game and supporting events.

This kind of hands-on networking has driven the Allens’ philanthropy so far, which has been laser-focused on a few local charities. Other early grantees have included Big Brothers Big Sisters of Miami, and Matt Allen’s alma mater Barry University.

Fundraising pros and looking ahead

Drawn from the experience that the Allens amassed serving on nonprofit boards, a key component of getting their family foundation off the ground has been fundraising. In April, the Allens held their inaugural Matt Allen Charity Golf Classic, which took place at Miami Shores Country Club, and marked the official launch of the foundation. The event raised nearly $1 million. The Allens initially put down $100,000 of their own funds to start the foundation. Matt Allen then asked Jorge Perez to match that with another $100,000.

He says he felt these two moves were critical to getting the ball rolling, not only donating his own money but getting Perez on board. “We want this money to go to work. When we wrote that six-figure check, and Jorge matched that, we knew we were off to a powerful start,” he says, adding that next year, the family plans on putting another $150,000 in the foundation and growing it from there. The foundation has no staff and no overhead, so all of the money raised can go directly to South Florida organizations in need.

So far, grantmaking has been lean and mean, focusing on the handful of organizations that the Allens have historically supported. Next year, their youngest child will graduate from college, and the couple are clear that they want to continue to increase their children’s involvement with the foundation. Matt Allen recalls one case when their oldest daughter wanted to support students at Barry University. He agreed to give a donation but then told her to take out her Rolodex to find the funds to match the gift.

Lisa Allen, meanwhile, sees the foundation as a pathway to continue the family legacy. Looking ahead, she’s also looking to measure the long-term impact of the foundation and its grantees. “I think that I would love to speak to legacy. This multigenerational legacy. Our children understand the impact of volunteerism, and getting their hands into it, too” she said.