The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (EMKF) is a major philanthropic foundation primarily focused in the Kansas City area. EMKF funds some left-of-center groups and a few right-of-center groups, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute. EMKF has more than $2.5 billion in assets. [1]
The EMKF supports government measures to implement diversity, equity, and inclusion in the economy, including the creation of “baby bonds” weighted by wealth to reduce the black-white wealth gap.
History
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation was founded in the mid-1960s [2] by billionaire Ewing Kauffman, an entrepreneur best known for founding Marion Laboratories which would eventually become Marrion Merrell Dow. Kauffman also founded the Kansas City Royals baseball team. [3]
Activity
Most Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation grants go to entrepreneurship, education, and support for low-income individuals in the Kansas City area. For instance, in 1988, the organization created Project Choice to lower the high school dropout rate for low-income Kansas City children by offering scholarships to cover their full college tuition. The program has continued to operate to the present. [4]
EMKF has given funding to numerous left-of-center organizations, including National Public Radio, the New America Foundation, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, the African American Mayors Association, the Bipartisan Policy Center, and UnidosUS. [5]
EMKF occasionally gives grants to right-of-center and libertarian organizations to promote entrepreneurialism, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Institute for Justice, and the Federalist Society. [6]
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
In an interview, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation president Wendy Guillies said, “the principles of equity and diversity and inclusion are embedded throughout our work.” [7]
EMKF promotes “inclusive prosperity through entrepreneurialism.” Most of its programs have an emphasis on supporting non-white entrepreneurs whom EMKF claims have less access to debt or capital to start their businesses. [8]
In March 2022, EMKF president Wendy Guillies announced a new set of priorities for the organization based on combatting inequality through “a lens of racial equity, diversity, and inclusion.” [9]
The EMKF’s blog, Currents, includes numerous articles on promoting black-owned businesses and black entrepreneurs. [10]
EMFK runs the Kaufman Fellows program, which supports entrepreneurs and provides financial support to venture capital funds which promote ethnic and racial minority employees. [11]
In 2021, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation released the America’s New Business Plan for the Start Us Up Coalition. The plan is a set of policy proposals designed to reduce income and racial inequality, including having the government provide universal access to broadband connections, and invest in black-owned businesses. The plan also advocates that the government create “baby bonds,” savings accounts established at birth which would accrue interest and provide an asset base for individuals when they become adults. The baby bonds would be established at different sizes depending on the wealth of the child’s parents; poorer children would get more money. EWKF claimed that such a policy would reduce the black-white wealth gap in the long run. [12]
Controversy
In 1992, entrepreneur Carl Schramm became president of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and presided over a tumultuous decade. Schramm was the first leader of the EMKF who had not been associated with Ewing Kauffman and was seen by many within the organization as an opportunist outsider. One year after his arrival, he was nearly removed by the board for supposedly abandoning the priorities of existing donors by refocusing the organization away from Kansas City in favor of attracting more national attention and prestige as a major nonprofit foundation (at the time, the EMKF was the 27th-largest foundation in the United States). [13]
Then-Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon (D) launched an investigation into the foundation’s board over allegations that Schramm had made an illicit deal with a board member to keep his support. [14] In 2004, the AG made formal suggestions to the EMKF to reform its governance to prevent conflicts of interest and lessen the powers of its president, but the AG did not find any evidence of wrongdoing between Schramm and the board member. [15]