The Chase Foundation of Virginia is the philanthropy created by Derwood S. Chase, Jr., founder and chairman emeritus of Chase Investment Counsel, an investment advisory firm that also runs a mutual fund. The foundation primarily gives to center-right nonprofits and to charities in the Charlottesville, Virginia area.

Derwood S. Chase, Jr.

Derwood S. Chase, Jr. is founder and chairman emeritus of Chase Investment Counsel, an investment advisory firm that also runs a mutual fund. Chase is a trustee of the libertarian Reason Foundation and the center-right Canadian think tank Fraser Institute. ¹

A 2005 Kiplinger’s Personal Finance article described Chase’s investment policy, which included buying stocks of companies with a market value of over $1 billion, earnings growth of “at least  10% annually,” and that trade “at reasonable price/earnings ratios.” ²

In 2019, Chase endorsed a petition from Open the Books which called on then-President Donald Trump to “start a transparency revolution” by publicizing every non-classified White House expenditure, cutting the White House budget by ten percent and other federal agencies’ budgets by five percent, and rewarding government employees and investigative journalists who uncovered waste with a percentage of the money saved and recognition at an annual awards dinner. Other signers of the petition were former Heritage Foundation president Edwin Feulner, William E. Simon Foundation president James Piereson, and Capital Research Center president Scott Walter. ³

Chase appears as a character in a 2018 novel by Rita Mae Brown, who says that a client of Chase “would never have a worry in the world” about her money and that Chase “would never divulge anything about a client.” ⁴

Chase and Chase Investment Counsel have endowed a chair for the principal horn player of the Charlottesville Symphony Orchestra. ⁵

Tax Foundation

In 2017, USA Today interviewed Chase about his support for the Tax Foundation, which the newspaper noted also received grants from the Charles Koch, Earhart, and Templeton Foundations. Chase said the Chase Foundation of Virginia gave grants of $75,000 a year to the Tax Foundation. “I don’t know if you consider them non-partisan,” Chase said.  “I don’t always agree with some of their positions. We are supporting them for their information.” ⁶

Grantmaking

In 2019, the Chase Foundation made grants to 60 right-of-center nonprofits, with the largest grants going to the Reason Foundation ($36,000), Institute for Justice ($30,000), and the Cato Institute ($32,000). The foundation gave grants of $20,000 or more to Americans for Prosperity, Atlas Network, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Fraser Institute, FreedomWorks, Goldwater Institute, Heartland Institute, and the Institute for Humane Studies. ⁷

1. “Derwood S. Chase, Jr.,” https://chaseinv.com/derwood-s-chase-jr/ (accessed April 22, 2022.
2. Steven T. Goldberg, “Results Don’t Tell The Whole Story,” Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, July 2005.
3. Open the Books, “The Wall Street Journal:  Our  Letter to President Trump,” https://www.openthebooks.com/the_wall_street_journal_our_open_letter_to_president_trump/ (accessed April 22, 2022)
4. Rita Mae Brown, Crazy Like a Fox (New York:  Random House, 2018), 72.
5. “Katy Ambrose,” http://www.katyambrose.com/katy-ambrose-bio (accessed April 22, 2022)
6. Lateshia Beachum,  “State Tax Overhauls Have Some Skeptical of Trump Plan,” USA Today, April 25, 2017.
7. 2019 Chase Foundation of Virginia Form 990.