The Craigslist Charitable Fund is a 501(c)(3) private foundation affiliated with the classified advertisements website Craigslist. The organization is known for donating heavily to nonprofit journalism outlets, gun control groups, and environmentalist groups.
Background
The Craigslist Charitable Fund was founded by Craig Newmark, owner and founder of the classified advertisements website Craigslist.
The organization says it funds groups that promote human rights, “justice,” education, the environment, transportation, non-violence, world peace, veteran’s issues, nonprofit journalism, open source, and the Internet. 1
The organization was founded in 2009. James Buckmaster is the president. 2
Forbes reported the fund gave out $20 million from 2012 to 2014. 3
Donations
Journalism
It backs multiple journalism initiatives. In 2018, it teamed with the Knight Foundation to provide $1.2 million to the Duke University Reporters’ Lab to create a fact-check app called FactStream, to provide real time fact-checking. The information is drawn from three left-of-center journalism outfits: the Washington Post, Factcheck.org, and PolitiFact, a project of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. 4
Among other nonprofit journalism outlets, Craigslist Charitable Fund has made more than $125,000 in donations to the left-leaning ProPublica, at least $70,000 to the center-left Center for Public Integrity, at least $50,000 to the liberal Free Press organization, more than $25,000 to the Center for Investigative Reporting, at least $25,000 to the left-wing Center for Media and Democracy and at least $25,000 to Democracy Now, a left-wing media production outfit. 5
The Craigslist Charitable Fund says it also gives to several left-leaning journalism organization such as Alternet, the media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Mother Jones, and Pacifica Radio. It also funds Poynter Institute, OpenStreetMap.US, Sunlight Foundation and Skeptical Inquiry. 6
It gave $250,000 to the Wikimedia Foundation in 2017 to launch an initiative to combat harassment and toxic behavior on Wikipedia. The Craig Newmark Foundation gave another $250,000 to the effort. The grants were set to be used for developing tools for volunteer editors and staff to block harassers for the user-content-generated online encyclopedia. The focus was to be on detection and prevention, helping victims of harassment report, and blocking harassers and making it difficult for people to engage in trolling and doxing. 7
Policy Advocacy
Craigslist Charitable Fund has financed several gun control organizations, such as the Brady Campaign, Stop Gun Violence, the Gun Safety Fund, and the Center to Prevent Gun Violence. 8 It also funds the anti-war group the Center on Conscience and War.
The Ploughshares Fund, a grant-making foundation dedicated to stopping nuclear weapons that was integral in the Obama administration’s Iran deal “echo chamber,” received between $25,000 and $99,000 from Craigslist Charitable Trust, according to the Times of Israel. 9
Craigslist Charitable funds the left-of-center voter outreach group Voto Latino, the far-left think tank Demos, atheist groups Freedom from Religion Foundation and the Council for Secular Humanism, and large environmentalist groups such as the Sierra Club and the Union of Concerned Scientists. 10
The fund has given more than $375,900 to the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal legal advocacy group from 2010 through early 2017, according to the Center for Public Integrity. The Craigslist Charitable Fund and the John D. and Catherine MacArthur Foundation were the largest donors to the League of Women Voters Education Fund. 11
Craigslist Charitable Fund also donates to the group Critical Resistance, which supports prison abolition, according to Politico. 12
References
- Foundation Directory Online. Accessed July 3, 2019. https://fconline.foundationcenter.org/fdo-grantmaker-profile/?key=CRAI058
- Big Database. Accessed July 1, 2019. http://www.bigdatabase.com/Big-DB/USFoundation-profiles/CRAIGSLIST%20CHARITABLE%20FUND-263823367.HTML
- Mac, Ryan. “Craig Newmark Founded Craigslist to Give Back, Now He’s a Billionaire.” Forbes. May 3, 2017. Accessed July 1, 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2017/05/03/how-does-craigslist-make-money/#3882e23327b1
- Nielsen, Aly. “Liberal Foundations Behind State of the Union Fact-Checking.” Newsbusters. January 29, 2018. Accessed July 1, 2019. https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/business/aly-nielsen/2018/01/29/liberal-foundations-behind-state-union-fact-checking
- Nielsen, Aly. “Liberal Foundations Behind State of the Union Fact-Checking.” Newsbusters. January 29, 2018. Accessed July 1, 2019. https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/business/aly-nielsen/2018/01/29/liberal-foundations-behind-state-union-fact-checking
- Craigslist Charitable Trust Home Page. Accessed July 3, 2019. https://www.craigslist.org/about/charitable
- Press Release. “Wikimedia Foundation Receives $500,000 From the Craig Newmark Foundation and Craigslist Charitable Fund to Support a Healthy and Inclusive Wikimedia Community.” Wikimedia Foundation. January 26, 2017. Accessed July 1, 2019. https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/26/community-health-initiative-grant/
- Craigslist Charitable Trust Home Page. Accessed July 3, 2019. https://www.craigslist.org/about/charitable
- Cortellessa, Eric. “Where Did Ploughshares Get Its Money to Sell the Iran Deal?” Times of Israel. May 23, 2016. Accessed July 1, 2019. https://www.timesofisrael.com/where-did-ploughshares-get-its-money-to-sell-the-iran-deal/
- Craigslist Charitable Trust Home Page. Accessed July 3, 2019. https://www.craigslist.org/about/charitable
- Beachum, Lateshia. “Kochs Key Among Small Group Quietly Funding Assault on Campaign Finance Regulation.” Center for Public Integrity. November 15, 2017. https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/kochs-key-among-small-group-quietly-funding-legal-assault-on-campaign-finance-regulation/
- Kenna, Ruairi Arrieta. “‘Abolish Prisons’ is the New ‘Abolish ICE.’” Politico. August 15, 2018. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/15/abolish-prisons-is-the-new-abolish-ice-219361