November, 18 2018, 11:00pm EDT
![Institute for Policy Studies](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012663/origin.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jessicah Pierre (617) 401-1470 jessicah@ips-dc.org, Chuck Collins (617) 308-4433 chuck@ips-dc.org, Josh Hoxie (508) 280-5005 josh@ips-dc.org
New Report Exposes How Top-Heavy Philanthropy, like Bloomberg Gift, Imperils Independent Nonprofit Sector and Democracy
Billionaire philanthropy is not a substitute for a fair tax system and adequately funded public services at the local, state and national level
WASHINGTON
Michael Bloomberg's $1.8 billion gift to John Hopkins University, is an alarming example of the problem identified in a new report, Gilded Giving 2018: Top-Heavy Philanthropy and Its Risks to the Independent Sector, co-authored by Chuck Collins, Josh Hoxie and Helen Flannery of the Institute for Policy Studies.
"Billion dollar gifts like Bloomberg's, while generous and visionary, mask a very disturbing trend," said Chuck Collins. The report highlights how the charitable nonprofit sector is currently experiencing a transition from broad-based support from a wide range of donors to top-heavy philanthropy increasingly dominated by a small number of very wealthy individuals and foundations.
As charitable giving becomes more dominated by mega-donors, this perpetuates the extreme wealth inequality that is disrupting our democracy, philanthropy and the vibrant independent nonprofit sector that we depend on.
Key findings include:
- Charitable contributions from donors at the top of the income and wealth ladder have increased significantly over the past decade. In the early 2000s, households earning $200,000 or more made up only 30 percent of all charitable deductions. But by 2017, this group accounted for 52 percent. And the percent of charitable deductions from households making over one million dollars grew from 12 percent in 1995 to 30 percent in 2015.
- There has been a marked increase in mega-gifting. In 2012, the threshold for mega-gifts was $50 million or more; gifts of that size amounted to $1.2 billion and accounted for just one-half of one percent of all individual giving in the United States that year. In 2017, just five years later, the threshold for mega-gifts jumped to $300 million or more; gifts of that size totaled $4.1 billion and accounted for about one and a half percent of all individual giving that year.
- In the past two decades, the number of households that give to charity has declined significantly. From 2000 to 2014, the proportion of households giving to charity dropped from 66 percent to 55 percent.
- The number and size of private grant-making foundations and donor-advised funds have shown dramatic growth. The funds held in private foundations grew 62 percent between 2005 and 2015; the number of private foundations chartered in the United States grew 21 percent over that same period.
"Over the last three decades, private wealth in the United States has become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. " said Chuck Collins, director of IPS's Program on Inequality and co-editor of Inequality.org. "We're now seeing this same trend in the charitable sector as a growing amount of philanthropic power is being held in fewer hands"
"Charity is now becoming increasingly undemocratic, with organizations relying more and more on larger donations from smaller numbers of wealthy donors while receiving shrinking amounts of revenue from donors at lower-and middle-income levels," said Helen Flannery, Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.
Growing inequity in charitable giving continues to hold risks not only for nonprofits themselves, but also for the nation. This has significant implications for the practice of fundraising, the role of the independent nonprofit sector, and the health of our larger civil society.
"This is truer now than ever," said Josh Hoxie, Director of the Project on Opportunity and Taxation at the Institute for Policy Studies."As ever-greater proportions of charitable dollars technically qualifying as tax-deductible donations are diverted into wealth-warehousing vehicles such as private foundations and donor-advised funds, and away from direct nonprofits serving immediate needs."
This report calls for an urgent reform of the philanthropic sector to encourage broader giving, protect the health of the independent sector, discourage the warehousing of wealth in private foundations and donor-advised funds, and increase accountability to protect the public interest and the integrity of our tax system.
Changes in the rules governing philanthropy should include:
- Increasing the minimum annual distribution payout for foundations.
- Excluding foundation overhead from the payout percentage.
- Linking the excise tax on foundations to payout distribution amounts.
- Reforming the rules governing donor-advised funds to require distribution of DAF donations within three years.
- Banning gifts from private foundations to DAFs and vice-versa.
- Setting a lifetime cap on tax-deductible charitable giving.
- Establishing a universal charitable deduction to encourage giving by low and middle-income givers.
Full report available at: inequality.org/gildedgiving2018/
Institute for Policy Studies turns Ideas into Action for Peace, Justice and the Environment. We strengthen social movements with independent research, visionary thinking, and links to the grassroots, scholars and elected officials. I.F. Stone once called IPS "the think tank for the rest of us." Since 1963, we have empowered people to build healthy and democratic societies in communities, the US, and the world. Click here to learn more, or read the latest below.
LATEST NEWS
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Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that one campaigner linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
Common Dreamsreported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that although the proposal "includes several positive reforms for the accelerated development of transmission projects," it also advocates "limiting opportunities for communities to challenge projects, loosening oversight for drilling and mining projects, extending drilling permits and fast-tracking [liquified natural gas] permits, and several other provisions friendly to fossil fuel giants."
"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
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Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
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Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
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Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
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In addition to those that have made it out of the country, there are 11 million people internally displaced within Sudan, most of whom have become displaced since the civil war began in April 2023.
An unnamed senior American official told the Times that the looming famine in Sudan could be as bad as the 2011 famine in Somalia or even the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
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The U.S. last week announced $203 million in additional aid to Sudan—part of a $2.1 billion pledge that world leaders made in April, which some countries have not yet delivered on.
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The comments in question were made by Vance to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson when Vance was running for the Senate.
Calling out Buttigieg—who, the secretary disclosed this week, was struggling at the time to adopt a child with his husband—and Vice President Kamala Harris, a stepmother of two and the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, Vance said people without biological children "don't really have a direct stake in" the future of the country and therefore shouldn't hold higher office.
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In his interview with Kelly on Thursday, Vance attempted to pivot away from his own comments, saying his point was to criticize "the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child" and claiming without evidence that the Harris campaign had "come out against the child tax credit"—a signature policy of the Biden-Harris administration.
"I'm proud to stand for parents and I hope that parents out there recognize that I'm a guy who wants to fight for you," said Vance. "The Democrats, in the past five, 10 years, Megyn, they have become anti-family. It's built into their policy, it's built into the way they talk about parents and children. I don't think we should back down from it, I think we should be honest about the problem."
Vance and Kelly went on to lament the anxiety "hardcore environmentalists" and progressive lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have expressed about the damage fossil fuel extraction is doing the planet, accusing them of pushing people to forgo having families—but said nothing about Republican policies that have made child-rearing less accessible.
In recent years, the entire Republican caucus in Congress was joined by conservative then-Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia in blocking the extension of the enhanced child tax credit, which had been credited with cutting the national child poverty rate in half. Republicans also allowed a pandemic-era universal school meal program to expire, while several Democratic-led states have passed state-level programs to ensure all children can have meals at school, regardless of their family's income.
Under Republican abortion bans, numerous stories have cropped up of pregnant people who have been forced to carry pregnancies to term despite finding out that their fetuses had fatal abnormalities and would die soon after birth—as have stories of children who were forced to give birth or had to cross state lines in order to get abortion care.
As with his position that nonparents should be "punished" for not having children, "who else does 'pro-child/family' Vance think should 'face consequences and reality' by way of curtailing choices, rights, and freedoms?" asked writer Alheli Picazo. "Women and girls who become pregnant through rape/incest."
University of North Carolina law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick said that one could test "empirically" Vance's claim that Democratic policies are anti-family.
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