The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) is a left-of-center Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) advocacy fund and grantmaking organization that conducts outreach campaigns to generate support for left-leaning causes among AAPI communities. ^{1 2 3} TAAF asks its corporate partners to prioritize Asian Americans in their critical race theory-inspired diversity, equity, and inclusion agendas. ⁴

TAAF publicly launched on May 3, 2021, with $125 million dollars on hand and an additional $125 million in pledges to support AAPI advocacy. ⁵ Within weeks of its launch, TAAF met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House⁶ and announced it had raised $1.1 billion in donations in partnership with the left-of-center Ford Foundation and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. ⁷

TAAF is fiscally sponsored by the left-of-center New Venture Fund. ⁸ TAAF’s partners and projects include Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAAJ), Stop AAPI Hate, The Urban Institute, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and others. ⁹

Sonal Shah, a former Obama administration White House official and national policy director for Pete Buttigieg’s unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign, is TAAF’s president. ¹⁰

History and Leadership

The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) was founded in 2021¹¹ and publicly launched on May 3, 2021,¹² with over $125 million on hand from its founding board members and $125 million in pledges to support AAPI advocacy. ¹³

Former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama provided video remarks at TAAF’s kickoff event on May 4, 2021. ¹⁴ Just weeks after its launch on May 20, 2021, TAAF met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House. ¹⁵

Sonal Shah is the president of TAAF. She previously worked as national policy director for Pete Buttigieg’s failed 2020 presidential campaign and as deputy assistant to the President and director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation during the Obama administration. ¹⁶ Shah sits on the boards of the left-of-center Oxfam America and Century Foundation¹⁷ and has held positions with the Google Foundation¹⁸ and at the liberal Center for American Progress. ¹⁹

Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt sits on TAAF’s board of directors and was involved in TAAF’s founding. ²⁰ Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is a member of TAAF’s advisory council. ²¹

TAAF is headquartered in Katy, Texas. ²²

Activities and Funding

The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) is a left-of-center AAPI advocacy organization which focuses its efforts on combatting anti-Asian hate crimes, gathering data and collecting research for issues relevant to AAPI communities, supporting education reform to include AAPI information in K-12 and higher education curricula,²³ and making grants to support AAPI-related causes and organizations. ^{24 25 26}

After its launch, TAAF began the AAPI Giving Challenge in partnership with the Ford Foundation and the John D. and Katherine T. MacArthur Foundation. TAAF advises its partners how to deploy financial commitments and ask them to prioritize Asian Americans in their critical race theory-inspired diversity, equity, and inclusion agendas. ²⁷

TAAF’s grantmaking activity includes issuing $1,000,000 grants to the left-of-center Asian Americans Advancing Justice Coalition (AAJC), Stop AAPI Hate (a joint project of Chinese for Affirmative Action, a pro-racial-preferences advocacy group; Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council; and San Francisco State University),²⁸ and the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF). ²⁹ TAAF has also made grants to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to improve the group’s Center on Extremism and to fund research tracking anti-Asian hate incidents,³⁰ and to the Asian American Education Project, The Urban Institute, Asian Pacific Fund, and AAPI Data. ³¹

Funding

Big Philanthropy

The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) is the single largest philanthropic effort dedicated to Asian Americans and is fiscally sponsored by the left-of-center New Venture Fund, which is managed by the Arabella Advisors, a consulting firm that controls a multi-billion-dollar “dark money” network. ³²

TAAF launched with $125 million of pledges from its founders as well as $125 in commitments from foundations and corporations as a part of the AAPI Giving Challenge. ³³ As of August 2021, contributions and grants to TAAF totaled at least $1.1 billion. ³⁴

Working in partnership with the Ford Foundation and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation,³⁵ TAAF has received support from left-of-center California Endowment, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Chicago Community Trust, Cleveland Foundation, Wallace H. Coulter Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Ford Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Surdna Foundation. ³⁶

Corporate Support

TAAF has received corporate support from Adobe, Allen & Company, Amazon, BCG, Bain & Company, Bank of America, BlackBerry, Blackstone, Bloomberg, BSF, CAA, Citadel Securities, Citi Foundation, Coca-Cola,³⁷  Dalla Valle Vineyards, DANA, EastWest Bank, Egon Zehnder, Etsy, FedEx, CGV Capital, General Atlantic, General Catalyst, Goldman Sachs, Goodwater Capital, Heidrick & Struggles, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Goodwater Capital, Google, KKR, KPMG, Levi Strauss & Co., MasterCard, McKinsey & Company, Merck, Micron, Moody’s, Morgan Stanley, the NBA, the NFL, Nike, O’Melveny, Oscar, P&G, Panda Express, PepsiCo,³⁸ Ralph Lauren, Salesforce, SilverLake, Sweetgreen, UBS, UTA, Uber, United Airlines, Verizon, ViacomCBS, Walmart.org, Wieden and Kennedy, Workday, and Zoom. ³⁹

Associated Organizations

The Asian American Foundation led the creation of left-of-center See Us Unite campaign in collaboration with the Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, and the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation. ⁴⁰  TAAF board member Shelia Lirio Marcelo is the executive producer of the campaign. ⁴¹

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