ISAW focuses on the study of the economic, religious, political and cultural connections between and among ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean basin, and across central Asia to the Pacific Ocean.

King Professorship at Harvard University to endow a chair with an interdisciplinary approach to studying the civilizations of the ancient world;[12] continued funding of the excavation of the Leon Levy Expedition to the seaport of Ashkelon, one of the five ancient Philistine cities in Israel;[13] and the Shelby White – Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications, which supports the publication of research on terminated and unpublished archaeological field work from significant sites in the Aegean, Anatolia, Balkans, Iranian Plateau, Levant, Mesopotamia and China.

"Paid for by a $2.4 million grant from the Leon Levy Foundation, the release contains 3,200 programs; hundreds of documents; more than 1,000 scores marked by past conductors, including Mahler; letters; handwritten notes; old clippings; and yellowing Western Union telegrams.

[18] Other gifts include $10 million to Prospect Park in Brooklyn for restoration of lakeside area to the original 1866 design of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, and $7.5 million to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden for a water conservation initiative, the largest private "greening" gifts in New York City history.

In 2008, the Foundation awarded a $4.5 million grant to Rockefeller University to fund the Leon Levy Presidential Fellowships in Neuroscience.

[24] "In 2011, the Foundation awarded Human Rights First a grant for a two-year fellowship and a pilot project to increase high quality pro bono legal representation of indigent asylum-seekers and other immigrants in New York City.

[27] The Foundation, created from Leon Levy's estate in 2004, named his widow, Shelby White, and their friend, Elizabeth B. Moynihan, as Trustees.