The Kaufman Family Foundation is a private grantmaking nonprofit based in Kenilworth, Illinois, founded in 2018 by Kenneth Kaufman, the chair and managing director of the health care consulting firm Kaufman Hall. ¹ It has given small donations to left-of-center and left-wing organizations, such as Planned Parenthood and the National Lawyers Guild Foundation. ²

History

The Kaufman Family Foundation was founded in 2018 by Kenneth Kaufman, the chair and managing director of the health care consulting firm Kaufman Hall. ³ Kaufman’s father, Felix Kaufman, was a partner with Coopers and Lybrand, a prominent accounting firm that became part of PricewaterhouseCoopers. ⁴

Even prior to the creation of the Kaufman Family Foundation, the Kaufman family was a prominent supporter of the University of Chicago. Since 1977, the family has given annual gifts to the university and has supported several of its projects, including the University of Chicago Booth School of Business Harper Center, its undergraduate college, and the Urban Education Institute. The Harper Center’s Kaufman study room is named after the family. ⁵

Present Activities

As of mid-2021, The Kaufman Family Foundation’s most recent—and only —publicly available financial filings were from 2018. That year, the foundation distributed $15,000 in grants. ⁶ The foundation gave $5,000 to a Washington, D.C. public charter school and an additional $5,000 to Planned Parenthood of Illinois. The foundation also gave a $5,000 donation to the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, a left-of-center immigration advocacy group that supports the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. ⁷

In 2019, the Kaufman Family Foundation gave $10,000 to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation. The foundation is the charitable arm of the National Lawyers Guild, an association of lawyers aligned with left-wing and far-left political interests. The National Lawyers Guild–Los Angeles is a member of the left-wing “Check the Sheriff Coalition,” which has demanded that Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva (D) resign and that the California Attorney General’s Office investigate the Los Angeles Sherriff’s Department (LASD). ⁸ In May 2021, the coalition presented a report alleging that the LASD had harassed the families of people killed by LASD deputies. ⁹

Finances

The Kaufman Family Foundation’s most recent publicly available filings from 2018 show total revenues of $1,042,156 and total expenses of $23,196. ¹⁰

The foundation was entirely financed by Kenneth Kaufman, who made a $1,014,599 contribution to the nonprofit in May 2018. ¹¹ The overwhelming majority of that amount, $1,0007,492, came in the form of various stocks. ¹²

Aside from the $15,000 in grants distributed that year, the foundation’s only other expenses were legal and professional fees. ¹³

Leadership

The president of the Kaufman Family Foundation is Kenneth Kaufman. As chair and managing director of Kaufman Hall, Kaufman has written blog posts in support of Black Lives Matter and alleged that there is so-called “structural racism” in American society. ¹⁴ He also wrote an article which claimed that the American people want government-controlled health care and suggested that America is slowly moving ”in the direction of something that increasingly resembles a single-payer system.” ¹⁵

The foundation’s board of directors also includes Kaufman’s wife, Barbara Kaufman, and two of his daughters, Rebecca Kaufman and Sara Kaufman Elsasser. ¹⁶

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2. “Kaufman Family Foundation.” Kaufman Family Foundation – GuideStar Profile. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.guidestar.org/profile/82-4077901.
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4. “Felix Kaufman Obituary (2012) New York Times.” Legacy.com. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/nytimes/name/felix-kaufman-obituary?pid=160876208.
5.  Station , Elizabeth. “Show of Support.” The University of Chicago Magazine, 2014. https://mag.uchicago.edu/university-news/show-support.
6. “Kaufman Family Foundation.” Kaufman Family Foundation – GuideStar Profile. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.guidestar.org/profile/82-4077901.
7. “Reforming the Immigration System for Children.” Young Center. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.theyoungcenter.org/reforming-the-immigration-what-we-do.
8. “About.” Check the Sheriff Coalition. Accessed July 21, 2021. https://www.checkthesheriff.com/about.
9. Brown, Rebecca, Lindsey V Thompson, and Maggie Gaffney. “No Justice, No Peace: The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Targeted Harassment of Grieving Families.” checkthesheriff.com, May 2021. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/608642aec0f6531f1411b0a8/t/609077012af19a6b8d378156/1620080386223/FINAL+LASD+Family+Harassment+Report.pdf.
10. “Kaufman Family Foundation.” Kaufman Family Foundation – GuideStar Profile. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.guidestar.org/profile/82-4077901.
11. “Kaufman Family Foundation.” Kaufman Family Foundation – GuideStar Profile. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.guidestar.org/profile/82-4077901.
12. “Kaufman Family Foundation.” Kaufman Family Foundation – GuideStar Profile. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.guidestar.org/profile/82-4077901.
13. “Kaufman Family Foundation.” Kaufman Family Foundation – GuideStar Profile. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.guidestar.org/profile/82-4077901.
14. Kaufman, Ken. “COVID-19 and Black Lives MATTER Lay Bare the Need for Healthcare Change.” Kaufman Hall. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.kaufmanhall.com/insights/thoughts-ken-kaufman/covid-19-and-black-lives-matter-lay-bare-need-healthcare.
15. Kaufman, Ken. “Is America Backing into a Single-Payer System?” Kaufman Hall. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.kaufmanhall.com/insights/thoughts-ken-kaufman/america-backing-single-payer-system.
16. “Kaufman Family Foundation.” Kaufman Family Foundation – GuideStar Profile. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.guidestar.org/profile/82-4077901.