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Amalgamated Foundation Launches Hate is Not Charitable Campaign
[March 19, 2019]

Amalgamated Foundation Launches Hate is Not Charitable Campaign


Amalgamated Foundation and its partners today launched the Hate is Not Charitable Campaign, an initiative to prevent funding groups that promote hatred.

The campaign includes more than 20 donor networks, foundations, and Donor Advised Funds ("DAF") providers that collectively represent over $1B in assets and growing. The campaign is calling for DAF providers to exercise their legal discretion over grants recommended by their donors and adopt pro-active policies to ensure that funds do not flow to organizations that promote hatred. Additionally, the Hate is Not Charitable Campaign calls for "donors of conscience" to demand that their own donor advised providers adopt such policies.

The initiative follows a recent investigative media report exposing the use of DAFs to finance hate groups. The report found that, between 2014 and 2017, major donor-advised funds including Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, Schwab Charitable Fund, and Vanguard Charitable provided nearly $11 million in grants to 34 organizations that have been deemed hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The organizations listed in the report include anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and anti-LGBTQ groups.

"In light of recent events, there is an increased urgency for the funding community to be unequivocal in its opposition to hate," said Anna Fink, Amalgamated Foundation Executive Director. "It is time for the philanthropic sector and its many stakeholders to hold ourselves to a higher standard that fulfills our responsibility to the public interest."

"Foundations, like financial institutions, must be responsible in shepherding financial resources and consider the risk associated with supporting organizations that promote hatred," said Keith Mestrich, Board Chair of Amalgamated Foundation and President and CEO of Amalgamated Bank. "In the wake of the 2017 white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Amalgamated Bank helped draw attention to the banking sector's transactions with hate groups and we're glad to see the Foundation taking on this issue in the philanthropic sphere."

Amalgamated Foundation has enacted a policy and hopes to serve as a model for other DAF providers and foundations. This change includes adjusting the due diligence process to ensure no funding flows to organizations identified as hate groups.

The growing list of nationwide partners in the Campaign include the Women Donors Network, National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, Stonewall Community Foundation, North Star Fund, Liberty Hill Foundation, East Bay Community Foundation, and Brooklyn Community Foundation.

"The campaign gets at a central issue in the intense debate that's been swirling around donor advised funds: do sponsors truly exercise discretion in making grants, or do they simply function as a pass-through and make whatever grants donors advise?" reflected Aaron Dorfman, President and CEO of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a signatory to the Campaign. "Enacting policies to block support for hatred is more than a best practice, its common decency."

Organizations can learn more about the Amalgamated Foundation's model policy or pledge support to the Hate is Not Charitable Campaign: amalgamatedfoundation.org/Hate-is-Not-Charitable





 

Hate is Not Charitable Supporters as of March 15, 2019:

Amalgamated Charitable Foundation            

Neighborhood Funders Group

BALLE Network

New York Foundation

Bread and Roses Community Fund

North Star Fund

Brooklyn Community Foundation

Propel Capital

CERES Trust

Proteus (News - Alert) Fund

Chinook Foundation

Resource Generation

East Bay Community Foundation

Social Justice Fund NW

Haymarket People's Fund

Solidaire Network

Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation

Solutions Project

JustFund

Stonewall Community Foundation

Justice Funders

Threshold Foundation

Liberty Hill Foundation

Women Donors Network

National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy

 


About Amalgamated Foundation

Amalgamated Foundation is building a powerful community of individual donors and institutions committed to collective impact. Leveraging the financial acumen and integrity of Amalgamated Bank's near 100-year history as a socially responsible banking leader, the Foundation offers a values-aligned alternative to donor advised funds that raises the bar on how providers inspire and engage their audiences. For donors who care about the environment, inclusive democracy, racial equity, LGBTQ equality, and reproductive freedom, Amalgamated Foundation's expertise and platform meets today's urgent need for impactful philanthropy.


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