Giving

4 Aug 2010

The claim

A claim goes round that billionaires’ wives secretly fund harm to the environment and to equality. This story found no published source for it, and tests it against named people. It is a narrow reading, not a full search: it read the tax code, a peer-reviewed study, news reports and the givers’ own words. Not read in full: the Walton, Mercer and DeVos families, and Jane Mayer’s Dark Money. What it did find is secrecy written into law, used by men, women and couples, and its effects in numbers.

1889

A duty of the rich

In 1889 Andrew Carnegie wrote that a rich man should hold his wealth as “a trustee for the poor,” administering it “far better than it could or would have done for itself.” Giving in life, by the giver’s own judgment, is the idea that critics such as Rob Reich later contest. Who judges, and who pays for it, is the argument of the rest of this story.

1913

Repugnant

John D. Rockefeller founded the Rockefeller Foundation in 1913. Rob Reich, who directs Stanford’s McCoy Center for Ethics in Society, says that in Congress some argued even a wise donor’s foundation should be refused. He also notes the tax deduction for gifts began only in 1917, so Carnegie and Rockefeller gave without one. Whether a gift this size is a private act or a public one has been argued since.

2026

The foundation

The most open vehicle is the private foundation. The tax code builds its payout on a 5 percent minimum return, taxes a shortfall at 30 percent, and taxes its investment income at 1.39 percent. Its annual return is public and names its donors: the IRS says that with the exception of private foundations, exempt organizations need not name contributors. Most other exempt groups, not all: political groups under section 527 must report.

5 percentThe yearly minimum return, as a share of assets, on which a private foundation’s required payout is built, in the tax code

2024

The fund without a name

The IRS says a donor-advised fund is held by a charity, which has legal control, while the donor keeps “advisory privileges.” The DAF Research Collaborative counts $327.87 billion in such funds in 2024, with $90.57 billion going in and $64.60 billion going out. DonorsTrust says it “preserves your privacy.” Law professor Ray Madoff says the rules for foundations exist so the public can see where the money goes. Phil Buchanan answers that DAFs pay out faster than foundations, a reported 20 percent a year.

$327.87 billionAssets in donor-advised funds in 2024, as counted by the DAF Research Collaborative from IRS data

2015

A company that gives

Inside Philanthropy lists LLCs that give, among them Laurene Powell Jobs’s Emerson Collective, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg’s initiative, Melinda French Gates’s Pivotal, and the Ballmers’ group. An LLC need not pay out or report its grants. Emerson, the list’s least transparent, says anonymity honors grantees; the Ballmers publish a database. The Zuckerberg-Chan initiative has a 501(c)(4) arm and Pivotal gives to such groups. Scholar Sarah Reckhow stopped tracking K-12 donors in 2015 as LLCs grew: she said she could not give a full picture.

2021

A trust with no public name

ProPublica reported in 2022 that Barre Seid gave Tripp Lite to the Marble Freedom Trust, run by Leonard Leo, before it sold for $1.65 billion in 2021, avoiding up to $400 million in tax. “The donation does not appear to violate any laws.” It is the largest known political-advocacy gift in U.S. history, made by a man who has not spoken to the press about his views. ProPublica also reports Seid gave to the Heartland Institute, whose record on climate science it criticises.

$1.6 billionBarre Seid’s gift to the Marble Freedom Trust, which ProPublica calls the largest known political advocacy donation in U.S. history

2021

What the money did

Leo’s network raised at least $460 million from 2005 to mid-2021, ProPublica counts, and one of its groups spent tens of millions on ads in Supreme Court confirmation fights. A campaign-finance lawyer, Brendan Fischer, warned Leo would have “over a billion dollars at his disposal.” Leo told the Washington Post in 2019 he is “engaged in the battle of ideas.” Donor privacy has a court case too: in 2021 the Supreme Court held California could not require charities to hand over donor lists.

2021

The other side

The AP reported in 2023 that Swiss businessman Hansjörg Wyss, barred as a foreign national from giving to candidates, gives through the Berger Action Fund: $339 million since 2016, $72 million in 2021, much of it to groups backing President Biden’s agenda. His representatives say it follows the law and funds “issue advocacy.” The AP notes the money cannot be publicly traced to test that. Federal Election Commission commissioners rejected a complaint, though two pledged more scrutiny.

$339 millionGiven by the Berger Action Fund to left-leaning nonprofits since 2016, from records, as the AP reported

2003–2010

Following the climate money

Robert Brulle counted 5,299 grants from 140 foundations, 2003 to 2010, totalling $558 million to 91 groups opposing limits on carbon emissions. Most came from conservative foundations; the Scaife foundations were second largest. DonorsTrust’s share rose from 3.3 to 23.7 percent, and 26 of 71 groups got over 90 percent of their income from undisclosed sources. A Koch-run fund began large grants to DonorsTrust in 2008. He calls the timing suggestive but “impossible to determine for certain.” The groups do other work too.

$558 millionFoundation grants to 91 climate-policy opposition groups, 2003 to 2010, as Brulle counted from IRS data

Mar 2010

The company’s side

In March 2010 Greenpeace said Koch Industries was the primary sponsor of the climate denial machine, with $24.9 million through its foundations to conservative groups from 2005 to 2008. A spokeswoman said Greenpeace mischaracterized its efforts to facilitate “an open and honest airing of all sides.” Cato’s president said no Koch money was designated for a specific project. Forbes reports Julia Koch and her three children now hold 42 percent of Koch, Inc.: ownership, not a documented gift.

Oct 2021

Climate money, kept quiet

In 2021 Laurene Powell Jobs planned $3.5 billion for climate work over ten years through Waverley Street Foundation; her spokesperson said it would go to “underserved communities most impacted by climate change.” The Chronicle of Philanthropy found $185 million went into a donor-advised fund from 2017 to 2019, and only one direct gift, $50,000, on its 2019 return. Buchanan said donors may not want to “hand them your playbook.” The Colorado Sun reported Emerson secretly passed a gift to Governor Polis. Later returns were not read.

Dec 2025

A list of names

MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving reports over $26 billion in more than 2,700 gifts, “to use as they see fit.” Its team researches recipients “as privately and anonymously as we can,” then lists them on a public page, without amounts, updated after it consults them. In December 2025 she wrote that she had given $7,166,000,000 in a year. The sources read here are her own words; recipients’ accounts were not read.

$26 billionGifts by MacKenzie Scott through Yield Giving: over $26,000,000,000 in 2,700+ gifts, by Yield Giving’s count

28 May 2024

In her own words

In May 2024 Melinda French Gates announced $1 billion over two years for women and families, including reproductive rights, as she left the Gates Foundation she helped found. She explained why: “in the post-Dobbs era, I now feel compelled to support reproductive rights here at home.” She named the other side herself: “the enemies of progress.” No opponent’s reply to this gift was in the sources read.

1964

The Buffett Foundation

Susan Thompson Buffett co-founded the Buffett Foundation with Warren in 1964, was its president, and when she died in 2004 left it almost all her Berkshire shares, about $3 billion, Inside Philanthropy reports. It gave over $5 billion from 2003 to 2018, mostly in reproductive health and abortion rights, and asks grantees to stay anonymous. Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America called Warren Buffett the “sugar daddy of the entire pro-abortion movement.” This is the case nearest the claim: its returns are public, its silence is its own choice.

1 Nov 2024

In the open

Miriam Adelson is, FactCheck.org says, a Republican megadonor. She and her late husband Sheldon gave $90 million of the $105 million the Preserve America PAC raised in 2020, which spent $103 million on ads attacking Biden. By 1 November 2024 the Brennan Center counted $100 million from her for groups backing Trump. Super PACs file with the Federal Election Commission. This is named giving by a woman, to a political committee, in the open.

$100 millionGiven by Miriam Adelson by 1 November 2024 to groups backing Trump, per the Brennan Center’s count of FEC data

2025

Seattle

The Gates Foundation says Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates have given it $63.9 billion, Warren Buffett $47.9 billion, with an $89 billion endowment and $8.47 billion spent in 2025. The Nation’s Tim Schwab wrote in 2020 that it used earmarked funds to direct the World Health Organization’s work. The Post reported in 2014 it spent over $200 million building support for Common Core; Gates replied, “We fund people to look into things.” Buchanan points to the “stunning reduction in worldwide childhood deaths” it contributed to.

$63.9 billionTotal giving to the Gates Foundation by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates through 2025, per the foundation

2025

The bill

Treasury estimates, under 2024 law, that the charitable deduction cost $47.5 billion in 2025 in its line for gifts other than education and health, $9.3 billion for education and $10.7 billion for health. Treasury warns against adding tax expenditures; this story’s own addition is about $67 billion, for all givers, not billionaires. The Institute for Policy Studies says households over $1 million claimed 10 percent of deductions in 1993 and 40 percent in 2019. Reich’s example, from 2019: a top-bracket donor’s $1,000 gift costs $600.

$47.5 billionTreasury’s estimate for 2025 of revenue lost to the charitable deduction, other than education and health

2018

The critics

Rob Reich: “When big philanthropists nakedly try to affect public policy, they are effectively acting as a plutocratic element in a democratic setting.” He adds that philanthropy is “not inherently undemocratic,” and would replace the deduction with a credit. Anand Giridharadas, on equality: rich people would have to pay higher taxes to empower women, so “they offer a light facsimile of change.” He names lean-in circles. Neither critic, in the passages read, singles out wives.

24 Jan 2019

The defenders

Phil Buchanan of the Center for Effective Philanthropy calls it a mistake to “lump all of mega-philanthropy together.” He agrees the tax break favors the rich “in a way that I find impossible to defend,” and concedes too much policy philanthropy, for example in Newark. But the philanthropy he sees “more often fuels our democracy.” Gates, on Common Core: “These are not political things.” And donor privacy has a court’s backing: Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, 2021.

2026

What the record shows

No source read shows a wife secretly funding harm to the environment or equality. The nearest, Susan Buffett’s foundation, is quiet about an openly stated cause. Scott, French Gates and Adelson give in the open; Powell Jobs’s money is partly untraceable by choice of vehicle. The largest hidden gift found was Seid’s, a man’s, and the best-documented climate funding ran through DonorsTrust. Not read: Walton, Mercer, DeVos, Mayer’s book, opponents of most causes named.