NoVo Foundation

Peter Buffett and his wife Jennifer are the co-presidents of NoVo, as well as co-chairs of the board of directors. ³

Background

Jennifer Buffett has funded community projects in Milwaukee since 1997. ⁴ Jennifer serves on the board of V-Day, a feminist advocacy group founded by Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler. ⁵ Peter Buffett is known as a musician, composer, and television producer. ⁴

The Buffetts founded NoVo in 2006 when Warren Buffett provided funding as part of his pledge to give away the majority of his fortune to charity. ¹

Ideologically, the Buffetts functionally align with the anti-capitalist left. Peter wrote a New York Times opinion piece condemning micro-lending and financial literacy. “People will certainly learn how to integrate into our system of debt and repayment with interest. People will rise above making $2 a day to enter our world of goods and services so they can buy more. But doesn’t all this just feed the beast?” ⁶

In 2020, the NoVo Foundation was one of the key recipients of a $15.97 million gift of Berkshire Hathaway stock from Warren Buffett. ⁷

By May 2022, NoVo had reportedly halted its funding of nonprofits that focused on preventing gender-based violence. ⁸

In November 2022, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the NoVo Foundation received 300,000 Class B shares in Berkshire Hathaway stock from Warren Buffett, part of $750 million in Hathaway stock that he donated that month to NoVo as well as several foundations associated with Buffett including the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the Sherwood Foundation. ^{9 10}

In June 2024, the NoVo Foundation received 695,122 Class B shares in Berkshire Hathaway stock from Warren Buffett. ¹¹

In September 2024, the Associated Press reported that Warren Buffett had decided to turn his fortune into a charitable trust administered by his children after he dies. In addition, the North Star Journal reported that as a condition of his annual gifts to his family foundations, those foundations had to give away what he gives them within one year. ¹²

In November 2024, according to a press release issued by Warren Buffett, the NoVo Foundation received 200,000 Class B shares in Berkshire Hathaway from Warren Buffett, which the media estimated at the time was worth $144,654,000. The Buffett family’s other three foundations, the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and the Sherwood Foundation, also received donations of Berkshire Hathaway stock. ¹³

Associations with Other Left-of-Center Funders

NoVo supports a number of community foundations, donor-advised funds, and nonprofit incubators which support left-of-center advocacy. In 2016, NoVo gave $21,913,104 to the Tides Foundation to support a large number of special projects including Feminist.com Foundation, Student Voice, and the European Women’s Lobby. ¹⁴ In 2023, NoVo gave $3,050,000 to the Tides Center and $52,876,458 to the Tides Foundation. ¹⁵ In 2023, NoVo reportedly donated nearly $23 million to the Tides Foundation for the purpose of funding “The Advancing Girls Fund,” an advocacy group intended to “center the voices and leadership of adolescent girls and young women of color…[through] intersectional and gender-expansive approaches, long-term systems change, and collective power-building.” ¹⁶ In 2022, NoVo reportedly donated nearly $24 to the Advancing Girls Fund. ¹⁶

NoVo provided Community Initiatives of San Francisco with $250,000. ¹⁴ Community Initiatives funds many left-of-center projects which support environmentalists, LGBT activists, and left-of-center media projects. ¹⁷  NoVo maintains a donor-advised fund through the Greater Milwaukee Foundation; in 2016, NoVo provided the fund with $471,500. ¹⁴ The Greater Milwaukee Foundation funds left-wing groups and projects such as Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, get out the vote (GOTV) campaigns, and environmentalist groups. ¹⁸

The Ms. Foundation for Women obtained $2,150,000 from NoVo for “general support.” ¹⁴ The Ms. Foundation gives to a host of left-wing groups including Adhikaar for Human Rights, Blueprint NC, Miami Workers Center, Planned Parenthood, and National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. ¹⁹ The Ms. Foundation has presented Jennifer and Peter Buffett with the foundation’s Gloria Award, named after Ms. Foundation founder Gloria Steinem. ²⁰

NEO Philanthropy received $216,450 from NoVo. ¹⁴ NEO is a left-wing clearinghouse that allows progressives to pull their funding to back projects across the country. ²¹ NoVo gave $186,450 to the “just economics playbook” and $30,000 to the End Rape on Campus (EROC) project. EROC opposed Secretary of Education Betsy Devos revoking controversial Obama administration guidance on how colleges were to investigate sexual assault, which critics argued (and some courts agreed²²) did not provide due process for accused students. ²³

Novo gave $2,250,000 to the New Venture Fund (NVF), which spends hundreds of millions on behalf of left-wing causes each year. ¹⁴ NVF is a “dark-money” group that allows left-of-center activists to spend millions on left-wing campaigns while being cloaked in anonymity. ²⁴ Campaigns funded by NVF have included a left-wing education ballot measure in Mississippi, ads targeting Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), and ballot measure in Colorado increasing taxes on oil and gas companies. ²⁴ In 2023, NoVo gave an additional $450,000. ¹⁵

New World Foundation (NWF) was the beneficiary of a $5,441,529 in grants from NoVo. ¹⁴ NWF supports various left-of-center initiatives through its funds. The New Majority Fund supports illegal immigrants and often works with the Phoenix Fund for Workers and Communities to aid labor unions. ²⁵ NWF backs environmentalist projects through the Climate Action Fund. ^{26 15}

NoVo is a partner of the left-of-center donor collective Democracy Alliance. ²⁷ The group focused on helping Democratic candidates during the 2018 election through turning out young and minority voters. One group funded by Democracy Alliance was Living United for Change in Arizona. The group paid canvassers to go door to door to turn out voters for Arizona Democrats including Kyrsten Sinema for U.S. Senate, David Garcia for governor, and other down-ballot left-wing candidates. ²⁸

According to tax filings, NoVo Foundation has funded several donor-advised funds through the Tides Foundation, a left-wing ideological provider of donor-advised funds and is reportedly a member of the left-of-center donor network Democracy Alliance. ²⁹

In 2023, NoVo gave $1,500,000 to the North Star Fund, which funds left-of-center projects in New York City and the Hudson Valley of New York. Also in 2023, NoVo gave $23,904,696 to Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors for numerous projects and $2,300,000 to RSF Social Finance to fund several projects. ¹⁵

Project Funding

LGBT Interests

NoVo provided $350,000 to Borealis Philanthropy for its Fund for Trans Generations. ¹⁴ The fund is used to support transgender activists and organizations. In 2019, the fund provided financial support to over 50 transgender-interests projects. ³⁰

National LGBTQ Task Force received $100,000 from NoVo. ¹⁴ Founded in 1973, the task force calls itself the oldest LGBT rights group in the United States and began pushing Democrats towards embracing LGBT interests in the 1970s. ³¹ The National LGBTQ Task Force supports legal protections for the LGBT community, abortion, and the inclusion of sexual orientation in the census. ³²

NoVo founded the Create, Connect, Transform project with Allied Media Projects (AMP). Over four years, NoVo will give AMP $3,000,000 for local organizing in Detroit to “fuel social justice, media, art, and technology innovations.” ³³ AMP, along with the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, gave funding to Detroit REPRESENT! a group that discusses injustices facing LGBTQ youth of color and make media projects to address it. ³⁴

NoVo gave $300,000 to the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project (BLMP) founded by the Transgender Law Center. ³³ The project seeks to highlight how law enforcement and the immigration system targets Black LGBT migrants. The project was started with the support of the Open Society Foundations Soros Justice Fellowship. ³⁵

Pro-Abortion and Feminist Groups

Equality Now received $1,450,000 from NoVo. ¹⁴ Equality Now advocates for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a longstanding goal of the American left-wing. ³⁶ The ERA bans discrimination “on account of sex,” which Equality Now claims could codify into the Constitution legal protections for the LGBT community. ³⁷ Equality Now also supports the expansion of abortion. ³⁸ In 2023, Equality Now received another $500,000. ¹⁵

NoVo gave Forward Together, a group that pushes a pro-abortion agenda, $200,000. ^{39 14} Forward Together has lobbied for paid leave and the expansion of government healthcare programs. ⁴⁰

The Global Fund for Women received $250,000 from Novo. ¹⁴ The Global Fund for Women advocates for increased access to abortion around the world and celebrated the passage of laws allowing abortion in Chile and Ireland. ⁴¹

The International Planned Parenthood Federation received $296,668 from NoVo. ¹⁴ The federation supports U.S. foreign aid dollars going to abortion providers and supports global abortion access. ^{42 43}

In 2023, NoVo gave $150,000 to Planned Parenthood of Greater New York.²

Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF) was given $1,500,000 from NoVo earmarked for the Economic Justice for Women (EJW) project. ¹⁴ Starting in 2008, EJW began advocating for paid family leave and has since expanded to also push for paid medical leave. ⁴⁴ The other areas RFF is active in are environmental projects focused on global warming and left-of-center electoral reforms. ⁴⁵ In 2023, NoVo gave an additional $800,000 to RFF. ¹⁵

In 2020, the NoVo Foundation announced that it would be re-examining its grant strategy after it had phased out its “Initiative to Advance Adolescent Girls’ Rights” team. ⁴⁶ and would ditch its initiative system in lieu of a holistic body. ⁴⁷

Left-of-Center Economics

Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) received $500,000 from NoVo. ¹⁴ CPD is connected to left-wing organizations with its board members having worked for the NAACP, AFL-CIO, and the American Civil Liberties Union. ⁴⁸ Past CPD campaigns include providing over $1,000,000 to support a ballot measure in Colorado in increase the minimum wage and “fair workweek” legislation which put burdens on business which made it hard to hire part time workers. ^{49 50}

NoVo gave Demos $200,000. ¹⁴ Demos is associated with Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and promotes leftist economic policies such as raising taxes, expanding the welfare state, and socialized healthcare. ^{51 52}

The Institute for Policy Studies, a left-wing D.C. think tank, takes support from NoVo. ¹⁴ The group’s connection to left-wing causes date back to when its founders left the Democratic Kennedy Administration and supported the anti-war movement in the 1960s. ⁵³ The institute supports a death tax of over 77 percent, a 70 percent income tax, and open borders. ^{54 55 56}

NoVo gifted $100,000 to the International Labor Rights Forum, which supports increasing the minimum wage, expanding the power of labor unions, and legal protections for illegal immigrant workers. ^{57 14}

Jobs With Justice Education Fund received $250,000 from NoVo. ¹⁴ The fund has worked on left-wing projects with UFCW labor union and National Domestic Workers Alliance. ^{58 59} Jobs With Justice Education Fund supports illegal immigration, labor unions, and increased economic regulations. ^{60 61 62}

Miami Workers Center (MWC) was given $66,660 by NoVo. ¹⁴ In 1999, labor activists founded MWC in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami. ⁶³ MWC’s pushes a “Femme Agenda” which focuses on poverty through the lenses of “low-income Black women, particularly LGBTQ women.” ⁶⁴ MWC has advocated for creating renters unions, opposing the patriarchy, and abortion. ⁶⁴

NoVo, in partnership with the National Domestic Worker Alliance (NDWA), is conducting the Women’s Rematch project, a $2,000,000 undertaking. ³³ The project claims to be a non-partisan voter engagement campaign. However, the project hopes to build on the efforts of the left-wing #MeToo movement. The projects efforts will be focused on increasing voter engagement in 2020 among traditionally Democratic voters in Georgia, a state featuring potentially competitive races for president and the U.S. Senate. NDWA is part of the “alt-labor” movement supported by labor unions and left-wing funders including the Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Nathan Cummings Foundation, and Marguerite Casey Foundation. ⁶⁵

Center for Community Change Action (CCC) received $150,000 from NoVo. ¹⁴ CCC pushes a left-wing economic agenda including expanding welfare programs and Obamacare. ⁶⁶

In 2023, NoVo gave $100,000 to the Alliance for A Just Society for the “Native Organizers Alliance.” ¹⁵ The Alliance for A Just Society advocates government-run health care and more spending on social programs. ⁶⁷

In 2023, NoVo gave $250,000 to the Center for Economic Democracy, ¹⁵ a group that advocates for an end to capitalism and moving towards a “post-capitalist model.” ⁶⁸

In 2023, NoVo gave $810,000 to Cooperation Jackson, ¹⁵ a left-wing group advocating for replacing capitalism with a system of worker-owned cooperatives. ⁶⁹

In 2023, NoVo gave $600,000 to the New Economy Coalition, ¹⁵ an anti-capitalist group trying to develop “real alternatives to capitalism.” ⁷⁰

In 2023, NoVo gave $1,335,000 to Democracy Collaborative, ¹⁵ which advocates the replacement of the free market capitalist economy with a socialist model. ⁷¹

Education

Through Advocates for Youth, NoVo provided $25,000 to Know Your Title IX which advocates for left-wing education policies. ¹⁴ Know Your Title IX supported the Obama administration’s Title IX guidance on sexual assault disciplinary procedures which forced colleges to use the lowest evidentiary standard. ⁷² That stance was so radical that “even some left-of-center legal figures took issue arguing that no student should be punished unless the school was more certain that a line had been crossed.” ⁷³

NoVo is an advocate of social-emotional learning. In June 2022, the Foundation for Portland Public Schools received a $30,000 grant to promote social-emotional learning. ⁷⁴

Black Lives Matter

NoVo partnered with the Movement for Black Lives for the Electoral Justice Project. ¹⁴ The $500,000 project was focused on creating campaigns within African-American communities to increase political engagement. ³³ The project was used to influence black voters to support the radical left-wing agenda of the Movement for Black Lives. The group’s platform incudes so-called “reparations,” such as free college and guaranteed minimum income for blacks; the redistribution of wealth; divesting from fossil fuels; and reducing military spending. ^{75 76 77}

NoVo and the Movement for Black Lives support the Movement Strategy Center (MSC). ⁷⁸ NoVo gave MSC $2,000,000 for the Decolonizing Race project. ³³ The project hopes “to transform the way conversations around racism and other issues of privilege and power.” MSC partners with anti-energy groups to push left-of-center energy policy. Policies such as ending fracking, divesting from traditional energy sources, and making U.S. energy 100 percent renewable by 2020 are all stances of MSC partner organizations. ^{79 80 81} MSC has supported left-wing food and restaurant policy through its work with the HEAL Food Alliance. HEAL supports efforts to end the tipped minimum wage, which is earned mostly by waiters and waitresses; end farm labor by prisoners; and the end of deportations of all illegal immigrants. ⁸²

In March 2020, NoVo published on its Facebook page a post by the left-of-center Communities for Just Schools Fund which offered homeschooling courses promoting the far-left worldview of “antiracism.” ⁸³

Immigration

Adhikaar for Human Rights and Social Justice received $107,500 from NoVo. ¹⁴ Adhikaar supports legal status for illegal immigrants and less restrictions on their ability to work in the United States.

NoVo started the Radical Hope Florida project with the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FIC). The $2,000,000 project is focused on bringing a feminist perspective to FIC and other partner organizations’ missions. ³³ FIC supports a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants and opposes local law enforcement aiding federal authorities in their effort to enforce immigration laws. ^{84 85} During the 2016 election, FIC mobilized a get out the vote campaign in traditionally Democratic areas of the state in an effort to boost Democratic turnout in the closely contested election. ⁸⁶

Human Rights First has had financial support from NoVo. ¹⁴ Human Rights First opposes detaining illegal aliens at the border, closing the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, and allowing more refugees into the United States. ^{87 88}

Native American Causes

Since 2022, NoVo has increased its support for Native American groups. Peter Buffett has had an interest in Native American causes since he composed some of the music for the film Dances with Wolves and wrote the score for the TV miniseries “500 Nations.” ⁸⁹

In August 2024, the Michigan State University (MSU) College of Law’s Indian Law Clinic received $400,000 from Novo to continue its work assisting Native Americans with the enforcement of federal law. MSU’s Indian Law Clinic is the only law school clinic that represents Native Americans in both federal and state court under Indian Child Welfare Act cases which the U.S. Congress passed in 1978 to prevent the removal of Native American children from their families. MSU’s Indian Law Clinic planned to use the funding to increase the network of attorneys who work on these types of cases and to advise on state-level versions of the law. ⁹⁰ MSU’s Indian Law Clinic most famously argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Brackeen v. Haaland which upheld the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act. ⁹¹

In 2023, NoVo donated $100,000 to the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy ¹⁵ which campaigns for the installation of weather-dependent energy on Native American reservations. ⁹²

In 2023, NoVo donated $1,000,000 to the First Nations Development Institute ¹⁵ which funds environmental and other economic developments on Native American lands. ⁹³

In 2023, NoVo donated $791,090 to the Resources Legacy Fund to support two Native American related environmentalist projects. ¹⁵

In 2023, NoVo donated $2,275,000 to the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples which invests in projects for Indigenous people around the world. ¹⁵

Kingston, New York

Peter and Jennifer Buffett moved to the town of Kingston, New York in 2010 and within a few years, Novo began pouring money into the town and the surrounding area to transform it into what the Buffetts see as a model community. In 1995, IBM abruptly closed its operations in Kingston, throwing 7,100 people out of work and plunging the town and the surrounding area into poverty. In 2011, Hurricane Irene devastated Kingston and the Buffetts’ property, and after the storm, NoVo began shifting its focus towards Kingston. ⁹⁴

In 2014, the NoVo Foundation paid $13 million to buy Gill Farm, a 1,500-acre family crop farm owned by John Gill, a second-generation farmer and local Kingston personality. The Gill Farm was the largest agricultural producer in Ulster County, New York. ⁹⁴ NoVo renamed the farm the Hudson Valley Farm Hub and intended to invest another $20 million into the project. The Local Economies Project, which is a fiscally-sponsored project of the left-of-center New World Foundation, took over the management of the farm. The then-director of the Local Economies Project, Bob Dandrew, was the former executive director of NoVo. The purpose of the farm was to teach farmers how to grow crops organically, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were banned from the farm.  ⁹⁵

By 2021, Tablet Magazine reported that NoVo had become the exclusive or predominant funder of, “Kingston’s local news media and radio station, a local printed currency, a 1,500-acre farm and produce distribution center, a food co-op, a museum, a think tank, a mutual aid network, a health care network, a hospital, the Kingston Land Bank, the YMCA, the community center, and dozens of nonprofits that are working on all imaginable forms of community projects.” In addition, NoVo had made substantial grants to both the city of Kingston and Ulster County, which were used to pay for routine governmental services. ⁹⁴

Some residents began to question how NoVo transformed their town without public input. A series of unofficial rules surfaced about those who received NoVo funds, which Tablet characterized as “you don’t discuss your grants from NoVo, you don’t criticize NoVo in public, and you don’t speak ill of the Buffetts — lest you jeopardize your funding.” ⁹⁴

Among the projects NoVo funds are Radio Kingston, which Tablet Magazine described as “[broadcasting] daily reminders about the foundation’s ongoing efforts to better the community.” Tablet reported that “Often one will hear shows hosted by employees of NoVo-funded organizations interviewing the employees of other NoVo-funded organizations about the projects and campaigns they run that are funded by NoVo.” ⁹⁴

NoVo also funded a local currency, the Hudson Valley Current. A main complaint about the new local currency was that the businesses that accepted it often did not have physical locations. Also, many of the accepting businesses were just consultants. One Kingston resident described the currency as “completely useless.” ⁹⁴

Other residents complained about how despite experiencing problems with illegal immigrant gangs and other high crime areas, the areas being invested in by NoVo were the most heavily policed areas of Kingston. Other residents complained about a lack of transparency in NoVo’s spending because NoVo often distributes its money through other nonprofits. ⁹⁴

NoVo partnered with the degrowth activist and author Martin Kirk, who promotes creating alternatives to capitalism to solve climate change, wealth inequality, and poverty. The NoVo-funded Radio Kingston frequently discusses what the post-capitalist society would look like, and how it would be built by the groups predominately funded by NoVo. ⁹⁴

In June 2021, NoVo pulled the funding for the Kingston Wire, which had one-third of its funding paid by the NoVo-funded Radio Kingston, because it did not approve of the news outlet’s lack of praise for NoVo and lack of climate change reporting. The Kingston Wire also investigated the financial relationship between the city of Kingston and the NoVo-funded Kingston City Land Bank where then-Mayor Steve Noble sat on the board of directors. ⁹⁶

In September 2022, a Kingston activist group, The People’s Cauldron (TPC), protested NoVo at a laundromat NoVo owned. The People’s Cauldron, which previously received money from NoVo, accused NoVo of harassing them and even having a member arrested. NoVo accused TPC of creating a rise in criminal activity when they had a presence at the laundromat. ⁹⁷

As of 2025, additional projects being funded in Kingston by NoVo include “The Metro,” a community hub center being developed from a former furniture factory with an emphasis on “environmental sustainability;” the “The Broadway Bubble and Community Hub,” a laundromat and community space; and “Greenkill House,”  an education center for youth 16 to 24 that partners with the Boys & Girls Club of Ulster County. ¹⁶

Other Grant Recipients

NoVo contributed $300,000 to the MomsRising Education Fund, the 501(c)3 charitable arm of MomsRising a 501(c)4 advocacy organization. ¹⁴ MomsRising supports a wide variety of left-of-center policies including expanding welfare programs, gun control, legal status for illegal immigrants, and the Women’s March. ⁹⁸ In 2023, NoVo contributed another $375,000. ¹⁵

National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) received $50,000 from NoVo. ¹⁴ In 1997, NCRP released a report on how left-wing think tanks could better deploy their money, which sparked the founding of think tanks like Center for American progress and directly helped to founding of Democracy Alliance. ⁹⁹ Today, NCRP still aims to help activists maximize the impact of their funds on promoting left-wing causes. ¹⁰⁰

In 2018, NoVo contributed $2.5 million to the Center for Justice, which is a think based at Columbia University and at the time run by former Weather Underground militant Kathy Boudin. Boudin was convicted of murder charges in 1983 related to the robbery of a Brinks truck in Nyack, New York. ¹⁰¹

In 2023, NoVo gave $200,000 to Democracy Now Productions, a left-of-center media outlet. ¹⁵

In 2023, NoVo gave $200,000 to Earthjustice, a left-of-center environmentalist group. ¹⁵

In 2023, NoVo gave $1,000,000 to the Global Greengrants Fund, which funds environmental projects around the world. ¹⁵

In 2023, NoVo gave $1,900,000 to Kashif Incubator, ¹⁵ a film artist support project that features on its website a land acknowledgment identifying the United States as part of “Turtle Island,” a Native American term for the North American continent. It further states that the U.S. is based on “Stolen Land. Stolen People.” ¹⁰²

In 2023, NoVo gave $500,000 to MADRE to support its “Advancing Climate Justice” project. ¹⁵

In 2023, NoVo gave $1,500,000 to The Land Institute, ¹⁵ which advocates for the replacement of modern agriculture with regenerative farming. ¹⁰³

In 2023, NoVo gave $2,000,000 to Magic Canoe to promote environmentalist storytelling. ¹⁵

In 2023, NoVo gave $900,000 to the Third Coast Activist Resource Center to fund a film project. ¹⁵

In 2023, NoVo gave $750,000 to Thousand Currents, ¹⁵ a group that funds left-leaning projects in developing nations. ¹⁰⁴