Benjamin Fund

Foundation Watch
The Private Investments of Private Foundations: Philanthropy’s “Dark Money”?
The IRS instructs private foundations to attach a detailed schedule of investments to their annual publicly available Form 990-PF. Some, however, do not include meaningful detail on how their vast…
by Robert Stilson on February 17, 2022

Foundation Watch
The Private Investments of Private Foundations: Incongruous Investments
Investment portfolios shouldn’t be battlefields for ideological conflict, but many foundations—and particularly the activist groups they fund—are increasingly choosing to make them so. This can result in a marked disconnect…
by Robert Stilson on February 17, 2022

Foundation Watch
The Private Investments of Private Foundations: Capitalism for Me, But Not for Thee
The specifics of a given foundation’s investments—indeed, whether those investments are properly disclosed and itemized at all—is rather less relevant when that foundation’s grantmaking evidences wholesale antagonism to market capitalism…
by Robert Stilson on February 17, 2022

Foundation Watch
The Private Investments of Private Foundations: Depoliticize Philanthropy
The point here is not that foundation investments should be politicized. They should not. Foundations should, however, abide by what appear to be unambiguous IRS transparency instructions and be prepared…
by Robert Stilson on February 17, 2022

Organization Trends
Divest from the War Machine and Radical ESG Activism
At its most extreme, public divestment campaigns can even seek to alter governmental policy and global geopolitics. Case in point, a campaign called Divest from the War Machine aims to…
by Robert Stilson on November 19, 2020