The Vijaya Foundation is the family foundation of Connecticut-based investment firm principal Vinit Bodas. ¹ Much of its giving supports causes related to Vipassana meditation, Connecticut community institutions, and education causes, ² though it has also given to left-of-center voter-turnout support especially around the 2020 election. ³

Bodas and his firm Deccan Value Investors LP were the subjects of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into a whistleblower complaint that the firm had mismanaged university endowment funds. In 2022, the SEC announced an enforcement action finding that Bodas and his firm had violated the federal Investment Advisers Act when it “made materially misleading statements and omissions” to his clients and “willfully violated the antifraud, recordkeeping, and compliance provisions” of federal law and regulations. ^{4 5}

Vinit Bodas

Business Career

The Vijaya Foundation was founded in 2006 as the family foundation of Vinit Bodas. He is the chief investment officer, president, and founder of Deccan Value Investors LP, an investment-management firm in Greenwich, Connecticut. ¹

Securities and Exchange Commission Controversy

Around 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was alerted to potentially fraudulent activity at Deccan by its former COO and CFO, John Malik. ⁶ Malik, who resigned from Deccan in early 2020 over a series of disputes with Bodas over compensation and firm management, alleged to the SEC that Bodas and Deccan had violated their fiduciary duties to two of the firm’s investment clients by treating them less favorably than other clients when they asked to cash out their investments in funds run by Deccan. ^{4 6} The two investors, which were reportedly Emory University and Yale University, accounted for nearly 18 percent of Deccan’s $3 billion in assets under management at the time. ⁵

Malik also sued Bodas and Deccan. According to the magazine Air Mail, the suit alleged that despite reportedly making around $40 million annually at Deccan, Bodas took an outsized share of the firm’s profits, leaving partners like Malik with less than they should have received. ⁶

The SEC opened an investigation based on Malik’s whistleblower complaint in 2020 and reportedly interviewed Bodas three times in 2021. ⁶ SEC investigators eventually determined that Deccan had made “materially misleading statements and omissions” to at least one client and violated federal law requiring investment advisors to retain records of their internal communications. ⁵

In 2022, the SEC announced a settlement in which Bodas and Deccan consented to a cease-and-desist order, the censure of Deccan by the SEC, a $500,000 penalty for Bodas and a $1,139,501 penalty for Deccan, and certain practices including the hiring of an independent compliance consultant. Under the terms of the settlement, Bodas and Deccan neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s findings. ⁵

Political Giving

Bodas had been a relatively small donor to Democratic politicians for years, supporting the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and then Barack Obama in the 2008 election cycle, Obama again in 2012, and Clinton again in 2016, with his largest publicly reported donation being $25,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 2016. ⁷

In 2020, Bodas dramatically expanded his political giving to Democratic candidates and elected officials. In 2020 and 2021, he made $281,975 in “hard-money” donations to Democratic candidates and committees. ⁸  This included $147,452 to the Democratic National Committee and $106,500 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. ⁹

Grant History

For most of its existence, the Vijaya Foundation’s grantmaking has focused on educational institutions attended by the Bodas family’s children, Indian cultural and religious institutions, and several grants to Teach for America (TFA). Between 2007 and 2018, the Foundation’s end-of-year assets ranged from a high of $2,195,147 in 2016 to a low of $608,801 in 2018. ¹⁰

In 2019, Bodas donated $4,752,498 in stock to the foundation. This resulted in the foundation controlling $5,158,538 in assets, which was more than eight times larger than the 2018 figure and more than twice as large as any previous year. ¹¹

The next year saw the Vijaya Foundation suddenly shifting its giving priorities. While it continued some of its donations to local schools and Indian cultural institutions, the majority of its giving in 2020 was dedicated to left-of-center voter-turnout initiatives with $600,000 of the foundation’s $1,000,856 in grants going to voter turnout programs at left-of-center America Votes and the Voter Registration Project. ³

In 2021, the Foundation again made the majority of its grants to left-leaning voter-turnout initiatives, with $50,000 of its $75,000 in grants going to the New Venture Fund (NVF), “to fund programs that aim to increase voter turnout.” That same year, Bodas donated another $1,214,000 of stock to the foundation. ¹²

1. Vinit Bodas,” Deccan Value Investors, accessed June 20, 2023, https://deccanvalue.com/team/vinit-bodas/.
2. Vijaya Foundation, Return of a Private Foundation (Form 990-PF), 2022, Part XV Line 3 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/421722869/202341329349100014/full
3. Vijaya Foundation, Full Filing,” ProPublica, June 8, 2021, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/421722869/202111599349100801/full.
4. “In the Matter of DECCAN VALUE INVESTORS LP and VINIT BODAS,” SEC.gov, August 3, 2022, https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2022/ia-6079.pdf.
5. “SEC Charges Connecticut Hedge Fund Adviser for Breaches of Fiduciary Duties When Redeeming Two University Clients,” SEC.gov, August 3, 2022, https://www.sec.gov/enforce/ia-6079-s.
6. Cohan, William D. “Poor Little Rich Boy.” Air Mail, June 20, 2023. https://airmail.news/issues/2022-8-13/poor-little-rich-boy
7. “Donor Lookup,” OpenSecrets, accessed June 20, 2023, https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=vinit%2Bbodas.
8. Who Are the Biggest Donors?,” OpenSecrets, accessed July 19, 2023, https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/biggest-donors?cycle=2020&view=hi&t0-search=bodas.
9. “Donor Lookup: Vinit Bodas,” OpenSecrets, accessed July 19, 2023, https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=vinit%2Bbodas.
10. Author’s calculations from Vijaya Foundation Form 990-PF filings from 2016 to 2021.
11. “Vijaya Foundation – Form 990-PF for Period Ending Dec 2019,” ProPublica, July 27, 2020, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/421722869/11_2020_prefixes_37-45%2F421722869_201912_990PF_2020111917426674
12. “Vijaya Foundation, Full Filing,” ProPublica, June 7, 2022, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/421722869/202211589349100406/full.