The Biden Foundation was a nonprofit organization under section 501(c)(3) of the United States tax code that existed from 2017 to 2019. It was established by then former United States vice president Joe Biden and Jill Biden with the stated mission to "champion progress and prosperity for American families". [1]
The initial establishment of the Biden Foundation as a 501(c)(3) organization was done, and received the approval of U.S. tax authorities, in 2016. [1]
The Bidens publicly launched the Biden Foundation on February 1, 2017. [2] It was stated that the purpose of the foundation was to allow them to continue pursuing the causes they cared most about once they left Washington. [2] [3] These causes included Joe Biden's Cancer Moonshot Initiative, from his time as vice president, and the Violence Against Women Act, from his time as senator; and Jill Biden's support for military families, which had begun as the Joining Forces initiative during her time as second lady, and her focus on community colleges, at one of which she continued to teach. [4]
Several former aides to Biden became prominent members of the foundation staff. [2] The board's chair was Ted Kaufman, [5] a senatorial chief of staff who had been appointed to fill Biden's senate seat when he became vice president. [2] The board's vice-chair was Valerie Biden Owens, [5] Joe Biden's sister and longtime political strategist. [2] Executive director of the foundation was Louisa Terrell, another veteran of the Obama administration and various congressional staffs. [5]
Also working for the foundation were former Obama administration political adviser Gautam Raghavan and former vice presidential economic advisor Ben Harris. [6] Another figure associated with the foundation was former Senate Judiciary Committee counsel and U.S. ambassador Mark Gitenstein. [2]
The intent was that the foundation would be funded by donations, which would be tax-free to the donors. [2] For 2017, the foundation reported raising $6.6 million. [7] Among the donors to the foundation were retired corporate executive Bernard L. Schwartz and baseball owner Peter Angelos. [8] The foundation did not accept money from foreign entities. [8]
The New York Times reported that most of the funds raised by the foundation went to staff salaries rather than grants and that in 2017, it made only one grant, for around $500,000. [8] However, Charity Navigator said that 86 percent of its monies raised went to program expenses rather than administrative or fundraising costs and gave the foundation a high score. [1]
In May 2018 the David Bohnett Foundation, along with the Gill Foundation, partnered with the Biden Foundation and the YMCA in a collaborative project to improve the levels of inclusiveness shown at YMCA locations around the country towards LGBTQ people. [9]
As part of the foundation, Jill Biden continued the advocacy work for military families that she had begun in Joining Forces. [10] (Joining Forces was resumed once she became first lady in 2021. [10] )
On April 25, 2019, the foundation announced that it was suspending all operations, effective immediately, with a full wind-down of the foundation's activities to follow. [7]
This closing was due to the advent of the 2020 Joe Biden presidential campaign, which was announced the same day. [7] Biden and his staff were anxious to not re-live the experience of the Clinton Foundation during the 2016 United States presidential election, which had kept going and thereby faced a series of conflict-of-interest charges that had bedeviled the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. [8]
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is an American LGBTQ advocacy group. It is the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for LGBTQ individuals, including advocating for same-sex marriage, anti-discrimination and hate crimes legislation, and HIV/AIDS advocacy. The organization has a number of legislative initiatives as well as supporting resources for LGBTQ individuals.
The Center for American Progress (CAP) is a public policy research and advocacy organization which presents a liberal viewpoint on economic and social issues. It has its headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Jeffrey Katzenberg is an American media proprietor and film producer who served as chairman of Walt Disney Studios from 1984 to 1994, a position in which he oversaw production and business operations for the company's feature films. Following his departure, he co-founded DreamWorks SKG in 1994, where he served as the company's chief executive officer (CEO) and executive producer of its animated franchises—including Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon—until stepping down from the title in 2016. He has since founded the venture capital firm WndrCo in 2017, which invests in digital media projects, and launched Quibi in 2020, a defunct short-form mobile video platform that lost US$1.35 billion in seven months.
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Bruce Reed is an American political advisor and non-profit administrator who was the president of the Broad Foundation. Prior to assuming that role in December 2013, he served as Chief of Staff to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and as CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). On December 22, 2020, it was announced that Reed would serve as a White House deputy chief of staff in the Biden administration, along with Jen O'Malley Dillon.
Jill Tracy Jacobs Biden is an American educator who has been the first lady of the United States since 2021 as the wife of President Joe Biden. She was the second lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017 when her husband was vice president. Since 2009, she has been a professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College, and is believed to be the first wife of a vice president or president to hold a salaried job during the majority of her husband's tenure.
Joe Biden, the 46th and current president of the United States, has family members who are prominent in law, education, activism and politics. Biden's immediate family became the first family of the United States on his inauguration on January 20, 2021. His immediate family circle was also the second family of the United States from 2009 to 2017, when Biden was vice president. Biden's family is mostly descended from the British Isles, with most of their ancestors coming from Ireland and England, and a smaller number descending from the French.
Steven J. Ricchetti is an American political aide serving as a Counselor to the President under President Joe Biden. He was the chairman of Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign. Ricchetti previously served as Chief of Staff to Vice President Biden during the Obama administration and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations under President Bill Clinton. In between stints in Democratic administrations, Ricchetti has worked as a lobbyist.
On April 4, 2011, Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, announced his candidacy for re-election as president. On September 5, 2012, he again became the nominee of the Democratic Party for the 2012 presidential election. Along with his running mate, Vice President Joe Biden, Obama was opposed in the general election by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, along with various minor candidates from other parties. The election took place on Tuesday, November 6, 2012.
Thomas Fahr Steyer is an American climate investor, businessman, hedge fund manager, philanthropist, environmentalist, and liberal activist. Steyer is the co-founder and co-chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions, founder and former co-senior-managing-partner of Farallon Capital and the co-founder of OneCalifornia Bank, which became Beneficial State Bank, an Oakland-based community development bank. Farallon Capital manages $20 billion in capital for institutions and high-net-worth individuals. The firm's institutional investors include college endowments and foundations. Steyer served on the board of trustees at Stanford University from 2007 to 2017. Since 1986, he has been a partner and member of the executive committee at Hellman & Friedman, a San Francisco–based private equity firm.
Evan Maureen Ryan is an American public servant, serving as White House cabinet secretary in the administration of Joe Biden. She previously served as Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) in the Obama administration (2013–2017) and was assistant for intergovernmental affairs and public liaison for then-Vice President Joe Biden.
Priorities USA Action is the largest Democratic Party super PAC. Founded in 2011, it supported Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. It was the primary super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign. In the 2020 presidential election, Priorities USA Action spent the third highest amount of all outside spending groups. It focuses mainly on high-dollar donors; former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a major donor to the group.
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On April 25, 2019, former vice president Joe Biden released a video announcing his candidacy in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. On November 3, 2020, Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, defeated incumbent Republican president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the general election.
Benjamin H. Harris is an American economist who is currently the Vice President and Director of the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution. Throughout his career, he has served in several public-service positions, most notably as the chief economist and chief economic advisor to Vice President Joe Biden from 2014 until the end of the Obama administration, and as Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy and Chief Economist of the U.S. Treasury. Harris was the executive director of the Kellogg Public-Private Initiative at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, the Chief Economist to the evidence-based policy organization Results for America, and the founder of the economic policy consulting firm Cherrydale Strategies. He has been a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal and regularly appears on cable television to discuss macroeconomics and public policy.
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