Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute (EWDI)

Organization

The Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute was founded in 2022 to research, educate, and enlist wealthy individuals in a movement that ends what it terms the social, economic, and environmental risks posed by excessive wealth. EWDI advocates for a just and inclusive system that shares wealth, provides government accountability, and creates a society of well-being. EWDI advances its interests by enlisting allies and partners, developing a favored narrative about excessive wealth, promoting a more progressive tax system, and researching policy approaches. The organization promotes the creation of communities that are safe, healthy, have green spaces, clean air, and inexpensive homes. ¹

Related Organizations

Crisis Charitable Commitment is a project of the Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute that promotes a pledge for foundations and donor-advised funds to distribute at least $100,000 at signing and from 0.8 percent to 10 percent of foundation or donor-advised fund (DAF) assets each year. ³

Reports

The Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute issued “Anxiety Aspiration, and Agency: Refocusing America’s Tax Debate for Working People” in conjunction with Wonder Strategies for Good (WSG), a program that used focus groups to develop messaging, including a downloadable messaging guide, to support left-wing tax policy to disrupt excessive wealth accumulation. WSG clients include George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (now the Gates Foundation), and the New Venture Fund (NVF). ^{4 5 6}

EWDI published “Funding Our Freedoms: Extensive Polls Find Americans Support Taxing the Wealthy.” The report is a summary of polls on a billionaire tax, wealth tax, raising the top marginal tax rate, millionaire surtax, capital gains taxes, the estate tax, and dynasty trust reform, and includes a summary sheet for use in advocacy and education work. ⁷

Funding

The Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund provided a 2022 grant of $1,469,00 to the Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute representing 83 percent of EWDI’s combined 2022 and 2023 revenues. ^{8 9}

People

Gabriella Sandoval is the Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute’s executive director and was director of race and equity policy for left-of-center The Utility Reform Network (TURN). Her 2023 salary was $210,577. ^{10 11}

Alan Davis is the chair of the board and the founder of EWDI; founder of the Crisis Charitable Commitment; director of the WhyNot Initiative, which advocates for redistributing individual income; board member of Patriotic Millionaires, which advocates left-wing economic policies; and president of the Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund. ^{1 12}

EWDI board members include Rajasvini Bhansali, the executive director of Solidaire Network and Solidaire Action, both left-of-center projects fiscally sponsored by the Tides Foundation; Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, chief of race, wealth and immunity for left-of-center advocate National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC); Chuck Collins, a founding board member of left-wing Patriotic Millionaires and co-founder of left-of-center United for a Fair Economy (UFE); Devin Fergus; Ellen Dorsey, the executive director of the Wallace Global Fund, which funds left-of-center movements; Darrick Hamilton, a founding director of the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy at the New School; and Gabriela Sandoval. ¹³