An astute, generous, and well-read woman, Frieda Schiff Warburg was an example both of the opportunities made possible by great wealth and the educational and vocational limitations imposed on women of her time. Her pattern of giving was more a reflection of her desire to carry on her family’s philanthropic tradition—particularly her father’s—than an expression of interests she developed on her own. It also served as a kind of substitute for the religious observance that had been important to her father, but that she did not feel moved to carry on in her own life.

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Warburg began her philanthropic work after her marriage as a director of the Brightside Day Nursery. In 1911, she became a director of the Young Women’s Hebrew Association (YWHA) and later its president (1929–1942).

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Although both Frieda and Felix Warburg maintained their position as non-Zionists, their first trip to Palestine in the early 1920s, made with the encouragement of Chaim Weizmann, turned them into enthusiastic supporters of development there. In 1936, Frieda Warburg was honorary chair of the building fund campaign for the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. In 1949, she established a $100,000 fund for medical scholarships at the hospital, and in 1951, she contributed $650,000 to the United Jewish Appeal to house and educate new immigrants to Israel. She also supported the Hebrew University, as had her husband, and she served as the honorary vice president of the International Youth Aliyah Committee.

In 1935 the Warburgs founded the Felix M. and Frieda Schiff Warburg Foundation. With Frieda Warburg as president and her five children as members, the foundation chiefly supported Jewish causes but, reflecting the interests of the Warburg children, also funded health, education, civic, art, music, and African-American organizations.

During the Nazi era, Frieda Warburg responded by helping rescue friends and family members caught in Germany, housing many of these refugees at her homes in Manhattan and White Plains, New York.

She received honors during her later years, among them honorary degrees from the Jewish Theological Seminary and Hebrew Union College, both in 1945.

Frieda Schiff Warburg died at her home in White Plains on September 14, 1958. In her estate of more than $9 million, she left bequests to her family and to the many organizations she had supported during her lifetime.