Amalgamated Bank: Philanthropic Politics
Amalgamated Charitable Foundation has ballooned its revenues by 8,890 percent since its creation, from revenues of $253,000 in 2017 to nearly $23 million in 2019. The 501(c)(3) is focused on…
Ford Foundation
Amalgamated Bank: “Hate Is Not Charitable”
In mid-2019, the Amalgamated Charitable launched an aggressive campaign to curb donations to conservative, libertarian, and right-leaning nonprofits by labeling them “hate groups.” The Hate Is Not Charitable campaign was…
Amalgamated Bank: Shareholder Activism
Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG)activism can also extend beyond an organization’s own practices and investment decisions. Shareholders in publicly traded companies can attempt to leverage their position to pressure…
Foundations Destroying American Public Education: The Hydra
The world of K–12 education policy has long been dominated by philanthropic foundations. Much of the education “reform” sweeping across America has been financed and pushed by elite, well-heeled foundations.
Foundations Destroying American Public Education: Equity Initiatives
The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 2019 New York Times series turned grade school curriculum, might never have seen the light of day if not for the MacArthur Foundation. In 2014,…
Foundations Destroying American Public Education: Education
The world of K–12 education policy has long been dominated by philanthropic foundations. It was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that pushed for Common Core, the national education standards…
Foundations Destroying American Public Education: Youth Activism
The foundations’ goals are political, and schools give them easy access to society’s most impressionable. But foundations relentlessly seek to shape children’s politics both inside and outside of the classroom.
Foundations Destroying American Public Education: Two Steps Ahead
K–12 schools are run by thirteen thousand independent school districts, but foundations have also perfected the art of implementing national political agendas through local government. Financially, this is a brilliant…
The Architecture of Big Philanthropy
“We shape our buildings,” Winston Churchill said in 1943, “and afterwards they shape us.” Foundations are not government agencies, of course, but they are meant to serve the public. Although…
“Democracy Funders” Lopsidedly Liberal
Of the top 200 givers to “democracy” as defined and tracked by Candid, 121 are ideologically categorizable as left-of-center and 21 are categorizable as right-of-center. Of the Candid list’s top…