MONEY WITHOUT SCRUTINY: Big, Very Rich and Dangerous: Time to Rein in Private Charitable Foundations.

A few years ago, Mark Steyn sagely observed, “In America today, few activities are as profitable as a ‘nonprofit.’” Nothing warrants changing that assessment now. President-elect Trump has a lot on his plate if he plans to turn around the ship of state. But if it’s not too presumptuous, I’d like to add one more item to his agenda: a substantial rewrite of the laws respecting our tax-exempt sector, reining in private foundations. . . .

Together, private and public charitable foundations are apparently sitting on trillions of dollars of assets.

These organizations have grown to massive size — and are poorly, if at all, regulated. Instead of meeting the charitable needs of citizens that government funds were inadequate to provide for, foundations are regularly being misused to fund organizations and outfits antithetical to our best interests, disenfranchising us and working at cross purposes to the desires and beliefs of most Americans. The achievements of a few big foundations include undermining the war on terror, Balkanizing our universities and society, lobbying for open borders, and undermining our economy with radical environmentalism. –

The most egregious offenders in terms of size seem to be those foundations categorized as private “non operating foundations” such as the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation –which exist primarily to give grants to others, and it will be these to which I refer here. (Operating foundations function rather like public charities, providing direct support to a school, a hospital, or another specific charitable program, and are not the subject of this article.)

The Foundations that are my focus are those like the Tides Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ford Foundation.

There’s a burgeoning interest among legal scholars, in business associations and tax, in reining in and scrutinizing nonprofits.