The Sergey Brin Family Foundation is a private foundation and philanthropic vehicle for Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google. Brin created the Foundation in 2014 following revelations surrounding an affair between Brin and a Google employee and his subsequent divorce from long-time wife Anne Wojcicki, with whom Brin had jointly operated the Brin Wojcicki Foundation. ¹

The foundation is in line with Brin’s personal and professional history of supporting left-leaning organizations and causes and annually gives over $50 million in grants to various organizations. cRecent grant recipients for the foundation include many California-based schools, libraries, and educational programs, in addition to a variety of left-leaning organizations such as the Tides Foundation, the Proteus Fund, and ColorOfChange. ²

Background

Sergey Brin is the world’s seventh richest person as of early 2021. Brin co-founded Google with Stanford classmate Larry Page in 1998 as a search engine using a new algorithm for ranking pages by importance. Brin led Google and parent company Alphabet as president of the companies from Google’s founding in 1998 until December 2019, when both Brin and Page announced they would be stepping away from daily operations while staying active with the companies as board members and controlling shareholders. ³

Though Brin is not often seen in the public eye and is considered to have a relatively low profile, Brin is active in philanthropic giving to left-of-center causes. Brin has also made donations directly to Democratic causes, including gifts to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and former President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. Brin also supports left-of-center causes through donations from the Google Foundation and the Sergey Brin Family Foundation. ⁴

History of Charitable Support

In 2014, Brin was caught in a public scandal over an affair he had with Amanda Rosenberg, the marketing manager for the Google Glass product. The affair led Brin to separate and ultimately divorce from his longtime wife, Anne Wojcicki. Prior to their divorce, Brin and Wojcicki, who is the CEO of DNA analysis company 23&me, ranked in the top 10 most charitable couples in the world, not far behind Bill and Melinda Gates, though giving from the couple’s family foundation, the Brin Wojcicki Foundation. ⁵

Despite the couple’s divorce, the Foundation gifted nearly $50 million in 2018, mostly to San Francisco Bay Area community organizations and education nonprofits such as College Track and K to College, other grant recipients from the foundation include the Human Rights Foundation, the Tony Blair Foundation, and the Wikimedia Foundation. ⁶

In 2014, in light of his separation from Wojcicki, Brin founded the Sergey Brin Family Foundation, which holds over $1.4 billion in assets, mostly in the form of Google stock. The foundation gave nearly $60 million in grants in 2015. ⁷ Many of the recipients of grants from the foundation include notable left-leaning political groups such as the Tides Foundation, the Proteus Fund, ProgressNow Colorado, the NAACP Foundation, People’s Action, and ColorOfChange. ⁸

The Foundation has also made donations to other left-of-center organizations including the Center for Story-based Strategy, ColorofChange Education Fund, Faith in Texas, Girls Who Code, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Tides Center. The Foundation also provided funding for the People’s Action Institute, one of the most aggressive left-wing advocacy organizations in the country. ⁹

According to its 2021 990 tax form, the Foundation donated a grant roughly $4,503,533 to Arabella Advisors-managed nonprofit Windward Fund for the purpose of, “General Operating Support For Rewiring America.” ¹⁰ Rewiring America is a project of Windward Fund and is a left-of-center advocacy group that urges the U.S government to undertake a society-wide mobilization to triple American energy production, similar to the industrial mobilization during World War II, in order to reduce carbon emissions. ¹¹

1.   Statt, Nick. “The Rise, Disappearance, And Retirement of Google Co-Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.” The Verge. December 4, 2019. Accessed December 16, 2020. https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/4/20994361/google-alphabet-larry-page-sergey-brin-sundar-pichai-co-founders-ceo-timeline  
2. [1] “Sergey Brin Family Foundation.” IRS Form 900. December 2018. Accessed December 16, 2020. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/472107200/01_2020_prefixes_47-47%2F472107200_201812_990PF_2020012317058619
3. Statt, Nick. “The Rise, Disappearance, And Retirement of Google Co-Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.” The Verge. December 4, 2019. Accessed December 16, 2020. https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/4/20994361/google-alphabet-larry-page-sergey-brin-sundar-pichai-co-founders-ceo-timeline
4. “Sergey Brin.” Center for Responsive Politics. Accessed December 16, 2020. https://www.opensecrets.org/search?q=sergey+brin&type=donors
5. Grigoriadis, Vanessa. “O.K., Glass: Make Google Eyes.” Vanity Fair. March 12, 2014. Accessed December 16, 2020. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2014/04/sergey-brin-amanda-rosenberg-affair
6. “Brin Wojcicki Foundation.” IRS Form 900. December 2018. Accessed December 16, 2020. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/201922947/12_2019_prefixes_13-20%2F201922947_201812_990PF_2019122016974653
7. “Brin Wojcicki Foundation.” IRS Form 900. December 2018. Accessed December 16, 2020. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/201922947/12_2019_prefixes_13-20%2F201922947_201812_990PF_2019122016974653
8. “Sergey Brin Family Foundation.” IRS Form 900. December 2018. Accessed December 16, 2020. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/472107200/01_2020_prefixes_47-47%2F472107200_201812_990PF_2020012317058619
9. “Sergey Brin Family Foundation.” IRS Form 900. December 2018. Accessed December 16, 2020. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/472107200/01_2020_prefixes_47-47%2F472107200_201812_990PF_2020012317058619
10. Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990). Sergey Brin Family Foundation. 2021. Part XIV. Line 3. Archived: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/472107200/202243199349103084/IRS990PF
11. Griffith, Saul. “Rewire America!” Medium, September 15, 2020. Accessed May 3, 2021. https://medium.com/rewiring-america/rewire-america-abac27ec281c.