The Sandler Foundation is a left-of-center philanthropy organization founded in 2001 by billionaire bankers Herbert and Marion Sandler. It has given approximately a billion dollars in grants to support organizations like the media group ProPublica and the think tank Center for American Progress. ¹

Most of the foundation’s approximately $1 billion in grants and donations have come since 2006, the year the Sandlers sold their company, Golden West, to Wachovia for $24 billion and turned their attention to philanthropy. ^{2 3}

History

The Sandler Foundation funds national, policy-focused initiatives that combine mission orientation with sound leadership and strategic principles. ⁴ In 2006, the Sandlers donated $1.3 billion to the foundation, the second-largest single American charitable donation that year. ⁵

The foundation’s “Guiding Principles for Grants” include focusing on fewer grants that make a larger impact, finding and filling perceived gaps in areas of interest, and providing long-term vision and strategic support that is supplemented by grant recipients’ need to have strong internal structures for long-term success. ⁶

Grants generally fall into three categories: founding grants, catalyst and expansion grants, and general support. ⁷ Inside these categories, most grants go to left-leaning public policy groups such as the Center for American Progress and the American Civil Liberties Union, while others go to public health and scientific research initiatives. ⁸

Grants

Founding Grants

The Center for American Progress is a leading left-of-center policy think tank. Founded in 2003, its revenue was nearly $52 million in 2017. ⁹ The center supports abortion, LGBT advocacy, a $15-per-hour minimum wage, legal status for illegal immigrants, climate change alarmism, and gun control. ^{10 11} The Sandler Foundation gave $2.3 million to help start the center ¹² and gave another $4 million in 2016. ¹³

ProPublica is an influential, award-winning, left-of-center investigative media organization. ¹⁴ Herb Sandler is credited as “the man who made ProPublica possible,” and sat on its board from its 2007 founding until his death in 2019. ¹⁵ The Sandler Foundation continues to donate to ProPublica, including $3 million in 2018. ¹⁶

In addition to providing founding grants to approximately 11 left-of-center political, policy, and media groups, the Sandler Foundation has helped launch a number of medical research initiatives. In 2010, the leader of one of those initiatives, a University of California-San Francisco parasitic disease research and drug development program, was given a prestigious award for his work on how parasites and related diseases affect poverty-stricken nations and regions. ¹⁷

Catalyst and Expansion Grants

Sandler Foundation catalyst and expansion grants to expand operations for grantees or to strengthen existing infrastructures. The left-of-center, religious-based social change group Faith in Action received this type of grant money. Viewing policy and culture through a racial lens, Faith in Action’s initiatives include, but are not limited to, urging local governments to not cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement. ¹⁸ The Sandler Foundation’s funding helped Faith in Action open a national office. ¹⁹ The foundation gave $500,000 to Faith in Action, known until 2018 as PICO, in 2016 alone. ²⁰

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) received $51 million from the Sandler Foundation from 2001 to 2019. ²¹ The ACLU’s Strategic Affiliate Initiative, which was launched after 9/11, received $12 million. ACLU executive director Anthony Romero wrote in 2017, the initiative unknowingly prepared the organization to oppose major parts of the Trump administration’s agenda. Romero highlighted the ACLU’s goals to protect Planned Parenthood’s government funding, support LGBT policies over religious liberty, and oppose the Trump administration’s partial ban on immigration from several Muslim-majority nations. ²² The ACLU received more than $3.7 million in 2016 from the foundation. ²³

Earthjustice, the former legal arm of the environmentalist advocacy group Sierra Club, has received $2 million in catalyst funding in 2016. ^{24 25}

One of the few non-advocacy catalyst donations made by the Sandler Foundation was to the Stanford Clinical Excellence Research Center. ²⁶ The center specializes in researching ways to improve how America’s health care system provides critical care in areas like dementia and cancer. ²⁷

Support Grants

Support grants are provided to groups and initiatives that are self-sustaining, completed, or which work outside of the Sandler Foundation’s focus.

The left-of-center Middle East policy group J Street Education Fund received $250,000 in 2013 for its advocacy for a two-state solution to Israeli and Palestinian conflicts. ²⁸

Four apolitical health care initiatives have received support grants from the Sandler Foundation. One of those initiatives was an international, multi-group effort to reduce bloodline infections in intensive care units. ²⁹

2020 Social Justice Donations

Following the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, Susan Sandler, the daughter of Herb and Marion Sandler and a trustee of the Sandler Foundation, donated $200 million to left-of-center social justice organizations dedicated to “fighting systemic racism” and encouraging minorities to vote. ³⁰

In addition to its many left-of-center political, public policy, and cultural change grants, the Foundation has provided almost $300 million to apolitical health care initiatives related to asthma, neuroscience, and other health care fields. ³¹

Leadership

Herb and Marion Sandler became billionaires after running Golden West Financial for 43 years. They sold the company in 2006 for $24 billion and focused on philanthropy until Marion’s death in 2012 and Herb’s in 2019. ³² Their legacy was complicated by Golden West’s development of a style of home mortgage loan that drew intense criticism after the outbreak of the 2008 financial crisis. Herb sat on the Sandler Foundation’s board as president and director. ^{33 34 35}

Herb and Marion’s daughter Susan is a trustee of the Sandler Foundation. ³⁶

Steve Daetz has been president of the foundation since 2019. Previously he was executive vice president from 2007 to 2019 and worked for Golden West from 2002 to 2007 as associate general counsel. ³⁷

Sergio Knaebel is a grants director for the foundation. ³⁸

Financials

The Sandler Foundation’s 2019 revenues were $253.2 million, $251.2 million of which came from investments. The foundation gave $85.3 million in grants out of $88.2 million in total expenses in 2019. Its assets in 2019 totaled $834 million. ³⁹

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