The Warsh Mott Legacy (WML) is a private foundation that makes grants to left-of-center international development, food policy, and legal policy organizations. WML is associated with the CS Fund, with which it shares a board of directors and staff. ¹ WML made more than $2 million in grants in 2016. ²

Background

The Warsh-Mott Legacy was founded in 1985 by Maryanne Mott and Herman Warsh, four years after they founded the CS Fund. Both are private foundations, and although they are legally separate entities, they share a board of directors, staff, and common program areas. ³ They provide grants to left-of-center international development, food policy, and legal policy organizations. ⁴

Warsh-Mott Family

Maryann Mott and Herman Warsh are the daughter and son-in-law of Charles Stewart Mott, a company director and board member of General Motors who founded the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation in 1926. ⁵ They established the CS Fund in 1981 and the Warsh-Mott Legacy in 1985. ⁶

Maryann Mott is a board member of WML, a trustee of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, board chair of the Ruth Mott Foundation,⁷ and an individual donor to Peace Brigades International. ⁸

Herman Warsh passed away in 2006. He was a board member of High Country News, the Fund for Santa Barbara, and Pacifica Graduate Institute. He served as the chair of the board of Environmental Policy Institute as it transitioned into the advocacy group Friends of the Earth. ⁹

Marise M. M. Stewart is the granddaughter of Charles Stewart Mott¹⁰ and a trustee of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

People

Melanie Adcock is the program director of food sovereignty at WML. She is a former advisory board member of the Center for Food Safety, and the ecological agriculture program officer of the Foundation for Deep Ecology. ¹¹

Bailey Malone is the executive director of WML and the treasurer of Petaluma Community Foundation. ¹² She is a member of the Justice Funders Harmony Initiative 2018-2019 cohort. ¹³

Shorey Myers is the program consultant for emerging technologies at WML. She became the executive director of the Jenifer Altman Foundation in 2010, which focuses most of its work on environmental issues. She is currently on the steering committee of the Health and Environmental Funders Network, and has previously worked with the Nature Conservancy (TNC), the Environmental Working Group (EWG), UCSF’s Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE), the Institute for Children’s Environmental Health, and Environmental Health News. ¹⁴

Grantmaking

Legal Policy

WML grants over $100,000 annually to Public Citizen, a liberal lobbying and advocacy organization created by left-wing activist Ralph Nader. ¹⁵ The organization pushes a broad liberal policy agenda, with a strong focus on opposing free-market interests. ¹⁶

Food Policy

WML provides funding to groups pushing a left-wing food policy agenda. The Center for Food Safety and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy both advocate against genetically engineered (GE) crops. ¹⁷

1. csfund.org. Accessed August 15, 2019. http://csfund.org/about/
2. Warsh Mott Legacy, Return of Private Foundation (Form 990-PF), 2016, Part VX Line 3a
3. csfund.org. Accessed August 15, 2019. http://csfund.org/about/
4. csfund.org. Accessed August 15, 2019. http://csfund.org/program-areas/
5. “History and Founder.” Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Accessed August 15, 2019. https://www.mott.org/about/history/
6. “About.” CS Fund. 2019. Accessed August 15, 2019. http://csfund.org/about/
7. “Board of Trustees.” Ruth Mott Foundation. Accessed August 15, 2019. https://www.ruthmottfoundation.org/who-we-are/board-of-trustees/
8. “Annual Review 2005-6.” Peace Brigades International. Accessed August 28, 2019. https://www.peacebrigades.org/fileadmin/user_files/international/files/annual_reviews/pbireview2005_6.pdf
9. “Herman E. Warsh 1924-2006.” CS Fund. 2019. Accessed August 15, 2019. http://csfund.org/herman-e-warsh-1924-2006/
10. “Marise M. M. Stewart.” Activist Facts. 2019. Accessed August 15, 2019. https://www.activistfacts.com/person/223-marise-mm-stewart/
11. “Melanie Adcock.” Activist Facts. 2019. Accessed August 15, 2019. https://www.activistfacts.com/person/1888-melanie-adcock/
12. “Board of Trustees.” Petaluma Community Foundation. 2017. Accessed August 30, 2019. https://www.petalumacf.org/board-of-trustees
13. “Meet the Harmony Initiative Class of 2018-2019.” Justice Funders. September 25, 2018. Accessed August 30, 2019. http://justicefunders.org/meet-the-harmony-initiative-class-of-2018-2019/
14. “Team.” The Jenifer Altman Foundation. Accessed August 30, 2019. https://jaf.org/page/team
15. Warsh Mott Legacy, Return of Private Foundation (Form 990-PF), 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 Part XV, Line 3.
16. “About.” Public Citizen. 2019. Accessed August 15, 2019.  https://www.citizen.org/about/
17. “Consumer Info About Food from Genetically Engineered Plants.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration. January 4, 2018. Accessed August 15, 2019.  https://www.fda.gov/food/food-new-plant-varieties/consumer-info-about-food-genetically-engineered-plants