Moriah Fund

The leadership of the Moriah Fund has ties with the Clinton administration and the liberal confidential donor consortium Democracy Alliance.³

History

The Moriah Fund was founded in 1985 by Robert and Clarence Efroymson through their family fortune.⁴ The Efroymson family has a long history of philanthropic involvement with three generations serving on the board of the Indianapolis Foundation, which they helped to create in 1916.⁵ The Efroymson family also established the Efroymson fund through a $90 million grant to the Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF). The donation was split between $75 million in 1998 and $15 million in 1999.⁶ The Efroymson Fund is now a donor-advised fund of CIFI.⁷

Mary Ann Stein was the former president of the organization and was the board chairwoman emerita until her death in 2023. She was the ex-wife of prominent liberal philanthropic advisor Robert Stein, who founded Democracy Alliance, a group of left-wing donors with the goal establishing “the activities of a permanent ‘left infrastructure.’”⁸⁹ Robert Stein was previously a Democratic political staffer who campaigned for former Sen. Alan Cranston (D-California); worked as a strategic advisor to Ron Brown, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee and later U.S. Secretary of Commerce under Bill Clinton; served as the chief of staff for the Clinton-Gore transition team; and worked from 1993-1995 as the chief of staff for the Brown as Secretary of Commerce.³

Politics

Social Liberalism

The Moriah Fund has financially supported many progressive agendas. In recent years, it has joined major left-wing philanthropies such as the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York in funding the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). SIECUS’s main message is one that “[downgrades]… marriage, [encourages]…teen condom use and [criticizes]…abstinence-only-before-marriage sex education policies.”¹⁰

In 2014, the Moriah Fund was noted as being a top funder of pro-abortion organizations. The Moriah Fund has financially backed the D.C. Abortion Fund, which “pays for the abortions that federal law prevents the city government from funding.”¹¹

Moriah Fund is also a member of the Rights, Faith and Democracy Collaborative, an initiative of the left-wing Proteus Fund, which opposes conscience protections for religious people who object to abortion, same-sex marriage, and other social liberal initiatives which conflict with Abrahamic religious teachings.¹²

Environmentalism

The Moriah Fund has also donated money towards environmentalist causes: notably, $135,000 to the Northern Forest Alliance between 1994 and 1996¹³ and $170,000 to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).¹⁴ The Moriah Fund also gave an undisclosed amount to the Citizens Clearinghouse on Hazardous Waste and as well as $45,000 to the World Resources Institute, which was designated for the FSC.¹⁵ Daniel Efroymson, the brother of Mary Ann Stein and a former vice-president of the Moriah Fund, was involved in environmental activism, serving on the board of the Indiana Natural Resources Foundation as well as serving as the national chair of The Nature Conservancy.¹⁶¹⁷

Israeli Left

The Moriah Fund is a major financial supporter of the New Israel Fund (NIF), a left-wing organization with the goal of promoting social justice and equality for all Israelis. Between 1999 and 2018, Moriah Fund has granted $45,718,829 to NIF.¹⁸ NIF has organized demonstrations against Israeli legislation designating Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people¹⁹ and funded organizations involved in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign.²⁰

Structure

The Moriah Fund focuses on four areas of funding: left-of-center policy and activism in and relating to Israel; promoting left-wing economic policies; advancing women’s rights and sexual and reproductive health; protecting and advancing human rights.²¹ The guidelines on the Moriah Fund’s website specify that the organization is only interested in funding groups that have a direct influence on policy.²

Finances

According to their 2022 990 form, the organization reported $978,092 in revenue, $5,373,068 in expenses, and $65,235,155 in total assets. ²²

According to the Moriah Fund’s website, it granted $58,597,078.91 between 2013 and 2017. Recipients include Americans for Peace Now, Center for Community Change, Bend the Arc, Center for Law and Social Policy, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Demos, Institute for Policy Studies, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the labor-union like Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, liberal donor advised fund Tides Foundation, Center for American Progress, Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington D.C., National Women’s Health Network, National Women’s Law Center, Neo Philanthropy, New Venture Fund, People for the American Way Foundation, and the New America Foundation.¹

In 2001, the Moriah Fund gave $22,395,944 towards the establishment of the Efroymson Fund of the Central Indiana Community Foundation.²³

People

Alice Johnson Cain is the Executive Director of the Moriah Fund. Prior to working at the Fund, Cain formerly served as a Delegate in the Maryland General Assembly while serving on the Ways and Means Committee and Education Subcommittee. She also has experience on Capitol Hill, serving as the chief education advisor for California Representative George Miller (D) when he was the Education and Labor Committee Chairman as well as the policy advisor to Senator Paul Simon (D-IL) and even a Congressional Senior Fellow with the Aspen Institute. In the political field, Cain was an education advisor to former President Barak Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign as well as former First Lady Hillary Clinton‘s failed 2016 presidential campaign. As of 2024, she serves on the board of Civics Unplugged (CU) and Black Voices for Black Justice Fund (BVBJ). ²⁴

Gideon Stein is the president of the Moriah Fund since joining in 2019 and is the CEO of short-form writing company White Label. He also serves on the board of media nonprofit organization Chalkbeat.  ²⁴

As of 2024, members of the board include Gideon Stein, Judith Lichtman, Dorothy Stein, Jean Desravines, and Craig Cramer. Mary Ann Stein was the chairwoman emerita of the organization until her death in 2023. ²⁴