Charitable Giving Dwarfs Political Donations by America’s Most-Generous Philanthropists

Last year Sheldon and Miriam Adelson ranked among America’s top donors in The Chronicle’s Philanthropy 50 by donating $25-million to Yad Vashem’s Holocaust-education program and $10-million to Birthright Israel, a charity that takes young Jews to visit the country at the center of their religious identity.

In this year’s presidential race, they also rank among the top political donors because they gave $41-million to Republican political-action committees.

Harold and Annette Simmons made the Philanthropy 50 a year earlier by giving $20-million to a Texas hospital; in the current presidential race, they have given $15-million to two groups that are trying to persuade voters to back Republican candidates.

As the two presidential campaigns and outside groups have already raised more than $1.1-billion, politics is looking more like a capital campaign, and the biggest gifts are coming from some of the same people charities turn to for large donations.

But even in a record-setting political-fundraising year, the overlap in top philanthropic and political donors seems limited and not necessarily a threat to the ambitious charity fundraising efforts that rely heavily on wealthy Americans, a new Chronicle analysis finds.

Most Gifts Are Small

In an examination of where members of the Philanthropy 50 list are putting their political dollars, The Chronicle found that the total sums the biggest charity donors in America give to national political campaigns are mostly fairly small, with the exceptions of business owners like the Adelsons and Simmonses and philanthropists like George Soros and the Koch brothers.

The median total political donation among Philanthropy 50 donors was $13,900 over the past five years, according to Federal Election Commission records. Those same donors have contributed a median of $54.9-million to charities over five years.

Melissa Berman, who counsels many of the nation’s wealthiest donors as head of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, says that although the sums may be relatively small, a growing number of philanthropists are stepping up their donations to political causes during the 2012 campaign season because they increasingly believe in the power of political advocacy and that big money is required to make a difference in campaigns these days.

But she says she’s not sure the trend will stick.

“The jury is still out about whether that’s going to be effective giving,” she says. “It might be that five years from now there’s less money going into things like that because it doesn’t actually persuade the people who are truly undecided.”

Even as the megawealthy are giving to political campaigns, she says she thinks most wealthy donors see political giving as something extra, not a replacement for their charitable giving.

Charities vs. Politics

For people who are affluent but not necessarily multibillionaires, however, some charities may feel the pain in an election year because of the competition from political campaigns, Ms. Berman notes.

A new Bank of America survey confirms that for many donors who make $200,000 a year or more or have $1-million in investable assets, political giving is a big draw. More than half of such donors gave at least $200 to political campaigns last year, compared with just 1 percent of all Americans who give that much.

Disclosing Donors

It’s possible that many of America’s wealthiest donors are giving more to political groups than The Chronicle’s analysis captured. That is largely because some political giving does not show up in public records—for example, contributions to nonprofit “social-welfare” groups that advocate for or against candidates but are not required to disclose their donors.

What’s more, the sums publicly available may sharply understate how much donors are giving to influence voters.

That appears to be the case with William and David Koch, heirs to the Koch Industries fortune, who channel most of their politically oriented giving to conservative and libertarian social-welfare groups.

Key Findings

Among the other key findings of The Chronicle’s analysis:

• While the biggest sums donated to political groups by people on the Philanthropy 50 went to Republican causes, a few of the superwealthy donors are giving to efforts that support President Obama.

The third-most-generous donor to political campaigns—after the Adelsons and the Simmonses—is George Soros, who donated $3.1-million in the past five years and has provided $1-million to a political-action group that supports the president’s reelection. His other donations are directed at liberal groups.

Irwin M. Jacobs, founder of Qualcomm, and his wife, Joan, come in fourth in The Chronicle’s philanthropy ranking for giving a total of slightly more than $2.7-million in political donations since 2007, most of it to a group backing the Obama campaign.

• Many Philanthropy 50 donors give to candidates and organizations on both sides of the political aisle.

For example, the financiers Stanley and Fiona Druckenmiller provided $331,748 over the last five years. They gave 20 donations to Democratic political campaigns and parties, 21 gifts to Republican campaigns and parties, and three donations to independent candidates.

The Top 10 Political Donors Among America’s Most Generous Philanthropists