Political ties of private family foundation trustees and the influence on granting

This study explores the intersection of political and charitable giving by private family foundation trustees in Canada from 2000 to 2020. It examines whether these foundations express political identities through their grant making, despite regulatory constraints on political activities. The analysis combines public data on charitable and political donations, finding that politically aligned foundations tend to support similar types of charities. However, the political alignment of private family foundation trustees is flexible, indicating that any political engagement has a greater influence than the specific party being engaged with. The findings suggest that private family foundations' grant making is influenced by trustees' political identities, with implications for how charities should approach fundraising from these foundations.

The results have wider implications for the role of foundations in democracies, including whether foundation granting is used to shape broader societal conversations to achieve political ends and whether foundations outside of the U.S. are vehicles for disbursing ‘dark money’ to influence elections.