What a difference a day makes. On October 19, 1987, fortunes were made—and lost—on Wall Street. A 32-year-old Paul Tudor Jones, founder of Tudor Investment Corp., was on the winning end when the market crashed. And yet, because he feared an economic depression, it was not a moment of pure joy. He recalls, “It was probably the worst trading call of my entire life.”

By then, he was already knee-deep in philanthropy, having founded an “I Have a Dream” program in one of Brooklyn’s toughest neighborhoods only the year before. But for Jones, the crash of ’87 caused him to seek something more. He went looking for organizations that helped New Yorkers living in poverty—and came up dry.

So Jones founded the Robin Hood Foundation to fill that gap, bringing a stock trader’s eye to solving poverty in New York City. Emphasizing the importance of strong nonprofit leadership and clear goals, and offering sharp insights into what makes an effective board, Jones has helped Robin Hood raise and distribute more than $1 billion to poor New Yorkers over the past 25 years.

And he has loved doing it. For Jones, there’s nothing like the “shared victory” of the student who is the first in his family to graduate from high school or the family who is getting its first home. Jones urges others to get in this joyous game now—and to give themselves plenty of time to weave their own “tapestry of good deeds.”