--- description: Find out who else is on the TIME100 Most Influential People in Philanthropy 2026 list. title: TIME100 Philanthropy: Sloane Stephens image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt74364265606dadad/6a049d7ca1d260067ca3800c/Philanthropy-2026.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y1.50 --- May 14, 2026 # Sloane Stephens Providing opportunity to play by [Harry Booth](/author/harry-booth/) ## Harry Booth Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Booth is a reporter at TIME.  Maya Dehlin Spach—WireImage/Getty Images Former U.S. Open champion Sloane Stephens was still awake at 4 a.m., tweaking posters for children’s tennis camps run by her foundation. Earlier that day, she’d lost in straight sets in doubles at the Rouen Open in France on April 14, knocking her from a tournament she’d won in 2024\. Even so, duty called. “Those little things mean so much more to me than winning a tennis match,” Stephens told TIME the following afternoon, adding, “I slept in late today.” She launched the Sloane Stephens Foundation in 2013, at age 20, to teach tennis in Compton, Calif.—a community where the costs of coaching, courts, and equipment have kept the sport out of reach for many kids. Seeing them pick up a racket for the first time and “being like, ‘Oh my God, this is my racket,’ it’s a different kind of joy,” Stephens says. “Because it feels like it’s so unattainable.” Her foundation has since expanded to soccer and swimming, and has grown beyond Compton to serve Stephens’ hometown of Fresno, Calif., as well as South Florida, reaching some 7,500 kids annually. Running a foundation while competing wouldn’t be possible without her mom, Sybil Smith, the foundation’s executive director, Stephens says. Her brother also works for the foundation and her uncle, who holds an unpaid position on its board, was the person who encouraged her to start the nonprofit in the first place. “It’s a whole family shebang,” Stephens says. She’s not shy about the fact that when she retires from professional tennis, she plans to dedicate herself to the foundation full time: “Honestly, in life, I think my true calling was to do this.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-philanthropy/2026/sloane-stephens/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-philanthropy/2026/sloane-stephens/"},"headline":"Sloane Stephens","datePublished":"2026-05-14T12:02:16.036Z","dateModified":"2026-05-14T12:02:16.257Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collection/time100-philanthropy/2026/sloane-stephens/","keywords":["list","franchise","Accolades","Magazine","Philanthropy 2026"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt74364265606dadad/6a049d7ca1d260067ca3800c/Philanthropy-2026.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y1.50&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Harry Booth","jobTitle":"Booth is a reporter at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/harry-booth/"}],"creator":"Harry Booth","articleSection":"TIME100","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt74364265606dadad/6a049d7ca1d260067ca3800c/Philanthropy-2026.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y1.50&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/time100/","name":"TIME100"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-philanthropy/2026/sloane-stephens/","name":"Sloane Stephens"}}]}] ```