Cayley Tull is co-founder and president of the Tullman Family Office, leading its philanthropic and political giving, social impact investments and community ventures. She talks about how the family office is set up to achieve the family’s goals and how she instills a sense of urgency and willingness to experiment in nonprofit work:
How did you come to lead the family office?
My background is in foreign government service. I served for a little over a decade, mostly abroad, and had an amazing experience. Like many, the terrorist attacks on 9/11 had a huge impact on my worldview and pushed me toward public service. I was — and continue to be — motivated by a desire to make the world a safer place and to keep America strong and prosperous.
I came back to the U.S. about four years ago. Around that time, our family had experienced a large wealth event with Teladoc’s 2020 acquisition of my father’s company, Livongo, for $18.5 billion. Soon after, my dad, Glen Tullman, asked if I would build and run our family office, and frankly, I was a little hesitant; this kind of role had never been on my radar. That said, and as those who know my dad can attest, he is a hard man to say “no” to. In addition, designing and directing our family’s philanthropic efforts seemed like a great opportunity to further my commitment to helping make the world around me a better place, just from a different vantage point. So, I took the leap.
For me, this work is hugely meaningful. I am constantly learning — we are tackling really tough issues that regularly challenge my assumptions and what I think is possible in the world.
What is the overall goal of your family office and how are you approaching that goal?
There’s a Jewish tradition called tikkun olam, which roughly translates to ‘repairing the world.’ Simply put, our family office is the collection of vehicles that we use to try to repair the world. We achieve this by connecting our traditional philanthropy to our political advocacy, to our for-profit businesses, to our investments, to our community ventures in an almost cyclical way. Each piece of the puzzle works together, enabling us to make progress in the areas we care most about with greater urgency and more efficacy.
We’ve got a lot of different balls in the air. It’s been fun to figure out how we coordinate and align all of these seemingly distinct areas. The simplest way to describe the connection of our varied efforts is that each investment is centered around human potential: that is a through line, both in our for-profit businesses and our philanthropy. There’s so much opportunity for and potential within every person, and we need to figure out how to unlock that for the good of all. We intend to bring about positive change and impact now, not later. We’re not focused on generational wealth and will give the majority of the wealth that we have away during our lifetimes.
At Tullman Family Office, we are very data-driven: We want to show results. While we’re not going into this work telling people what needs to be done, we recognize the importance of measurements to assess how something is going, enabling us to make informed decisions. We exercise a quasi-’trust, but verify’ mentality to our giving.
How is the family office structured?
We built an umbrella family office structure, which encompasses traditional philanthropic giving, political advocacy work, social impact investments, a few for-profit entities — such as the recently announced magic venue,The Hand & The Eye, coming to Chicago in 2026 — and what we call community ventures, which I like to think about as ‘philanthropy on steroids.’
Our family office is small but mighty, with a team of five full-time employees. The profits from our investments and active businesses continue to fuel the nonprofit work that takes place now, as opposed to having an endowment or saving this wealth for future generations.
What is your philanthropic focus?
We divide our philanthropy into four categories:
Healthcare: Health and care are by far and away the most significant area for us in terms of giving. If someone doesn’t have the opportunity to live a healthy life, it’s going to be extremely difficult for them to thrive. Recently, my father made a $100 million commitment to accelerate progress in diabetes research through our partnership with Breakthrough T1D. This is an example of the kind of transformational giving to which we are committed.
Workforce: Similarly, without a solid job allowing an individual to provide for themselves and their families, it’s going to be really difficult to live a meaningful life. For this reason, we have designed and led dynamic initiatives to create more efficiency in this field, starting in our hometown of Chicago.
Education: If we’re not making the investments that we need to in our youth, then all we are investing in is a broken pipeline for America’s own future. With our ever-changing global economy — AI and tech becoming increasingly infused into the way we live and work — it will be increasingly important for America to innovate and take advantage of the talent that we already have. This is why we have doubled down on our focus on workforce in Chicago, which we expect to bear fruit in the near-term in the form of helping to redesign the city’s approach to engaging overlooked talent and making a strong business case for using all the talent on our bench.
National security and public service: This vector supports those who serve in the military and other tip-of-the-spear roles, including the intelligence community, as well as supporting our allies abroad. We also make investments in non-partisan, pro-democracy work to ensure that Americans have access to a robust, well-functioning democracy that is there to serve them.
We believe in instilling a sense of civic engagement in all we do. How can we make it more apparent why people should care about what happens to the world around them, to their community and to what really ties us together as a country? While America remains the greatest country in the world, there are many things that we can and must improve upon. And in order to do that, we need people to believe that it’s worth trying.
These days, Americans are increasingly concerned about the future and becoming more and more disengaged, not only with politics, but also with their own communities. We identify and support opportunities for connection and local engagement. This is not the moment to give up on our country, or to give up on many of the values that have set us apart from many other countries worldwide.
What sort of political advocacy do you do?
We do everything from direct candidate support to PAC support to politically moderate coalition building with like-minded donors.
We view ourselves as very ‘in the middle,’ politically speaking, and we’re committed to supporting candidates who are reasonable and rational, are pursuing elected office for the right reasons and have diverse experiences to bring to public service.
For example, we particularly love veterans, bringing that mission- and team-oriented lens, or scientists, who bring a more data-driven perspective to policy and legislation. The more that we can create this patchwork of reasonable individuals with a wide swath of experience, the better position we will be in to solve the most challenging problems facing our country today.
We’re also really focused on coalition building. How can we bring together other donors who see the world like we do? We may not agree on every single issue, but there’s plenty that we can agree on, and we want to try to move that political needle a little closer to center — after all, isn’t that where most Americans fall?
What are some examples of your for-profit businesses and social impact investments?
To us, having the ability and opportunity to live a healthy life is fundamental. So we’re working on health and care in the philanthropic space, but also on the for-profit side, because it’s going to take all of us to fix our broken healthcare system.
My father runs a company called Transcarent, which is leading a lot of really exciting work to make health and care more accessible and affordable for all Americans.
What we are determined to do through not only Transcarent, but also my dad’s previous company, Livongo, and other efforts that he has led in the healthcare and tech space, is use the tools we have — data and technology — to improve navigation and hold the people who are making healthcare more costly and less effective for Americans accountable. It’s going to take a lot of coordinated efforts across business investment, philanthropy and policy to bring about the change that Americans urgently need to see.
We also run a glass studio in Chicago which, while technically for-profit, the gain has primarily been measured in human connection and artistic innovation. My older brother Ben, who is an exceptional glass artist, operates and directs this effort. It’s a real hub of learning and creativity where artists bring incredible creations to life and visitors learn how to blow glass. Ignite is a place of connection, and we’re really proud of creating such a unique space for the city. Historically, we have also run several community programs out of Ignite, including for school-aged children and justice-involved individuals.
One fantastic example of one of our social impact investments is WellWithAll, a wellness company on a mission to end health inequity for Black, Brown and underserved communities. What we love about WellWithAll is their focus on preventative, holistic and equitable health, as well as their thoughtful approach to storytelling that actually resonates with target communities. WellWithAll is a perfect example of Benjamin Franklin’s famous counsel to the American people and a principle that guides our work: ‘Do well by doing good.’
What are community ventures?
Community ventures focus on issues we deeply care about, where we have determined that only giving money isn’t enough, because the space requires a little redesign, disruption or a jolt of energy.
Often, these represent areas with a lot of activity philanthropically, where operators and funders alike are accustomed to ‘business as usual,’ which tends to lead to incremental, rather than transformational, progress. Sometimes, a little interruption with innovation and coalition building can make all the difference to quickly achieve meaningful, sustainable change.
What have you observed so far about this sector?
Right away, I realized I am on the younger side of individuals running multimillion-dollar annual philanthropic portfolios on behalf of their families. This made me wonder where and how to better engage and leverage the mid-career professionals and next generations of families of wealth to maximize our collective impact. Over the last several years, I have met many who fall into this category who are very passionate about the good their family can do in the world, but, for a variety of reasons, remain on the sidelines of strategic giving.
While every family is different, there are many opportunities for younger members to become much more involved and motivated, as opposed to waiting in the wings for some undetermined time in the future to help do something that could be impactful for the community. I say: Why wait? The time is now.
