Wyss Foundation

The Berger Action Fund, formerly the Wyss Action Fund, is the 501(c)(4) advocacy wing of the Wyss Foundation, a highly unusual arrangement for a private foundation. Wyss Foundation has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Berger Action Fund since its creation in 2007 as “payment” for “shared personnel and facilities.” ^{4 5 6} In April 2021, the New York Times criticized Berger Action Fund for donating $10.8 million between 2016 and 2017 to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) funding and fiscal sponsorship nonprofit part of a multibillion-dollar “dark money” network managed by Arabella Advisors, a consulting firm in Washington, DC. ⁷ In May 2021, the New York Times criticized the Wyss Foundation’s close ties and funding for the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which it called one of the “leading dark money spenders on the Left” responsible for distributing more than $63 million in super PAC donations that hurt Republicans and aided Democrats in the 2020 election, as well for “help[ing] create and fund dozens of groups, including some that worked to block Mr. Trump’s nominees and push progressive appointments by Mr. Biden.” ⁸

History and Mission

In 1998, Hansjorg Wyss established the Wyss Foundation to help ensure land conservation in the American West. The foundation states that its mission is “to [support] innovative, lasting solutions that improve lives, empower communities, and strengthen connections to the land.”² The foundation highlights a lifetime total of $175 million grants have been awarded to “help local communities, land trusts, and non-profit partners conserve nearly 14 million acres in the West for future generations.”⁹

In 2013, Hansjorg Wyss’ second foundation, the HJW Foundation, was dissolved and merged into the Wyss Foundation, transferring over $283 million in assets.^{10 11}

A 2015 memo from the Wyss Foundation unveiled plans to spend $100 million over the next five years on voter registration and outreach. The memo, which detailed the Wyss Foundation’s political plans and strategy, ultimately ended up in the hands of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). This created controversy, as the Wyss Foundation is a nonprofit group and is barred from funding explicitly partisan political projects. ¹²

Berger Action Fund (Wyss Action Fund)

For more information, see Berger Action Fund (Nonprofit)

The Berger Action Fund, formerly the Wyss Action Fund, is the 501(c)(4) advocacy wing of the Wyss Foundation, a highly unusual arrangement for a private foundation. The two organizations are listed as related organizations in their IRS Form 990 filings. Between 2017 and 2018 Wyss Foundation paid $173,012 to the Berger Action Fund as “payment” for “shared personnel and facilities.” ^{4 5 6}

It was renamed “Berger Action Fund” in 2016. ¹³ The reason for the name change is unclear, but it appears to have been renamed for Susi Berger (née Susanna Ottilia Franziska Wyss), Hansjorg Wyss‘ sister-in-law. Berger (1938-2019) was a notable Swiss graphic artist who, with her husband Ueli (1937-2008), worked in art, interior design, and furniture design in Bern beginning in the 1960s. ^{14 15}

Between 2010 and 2017, Berger granted $1,291,500 to New Venture Fund and $12,404,500 to Sixteen Thirty Fund. ¹⁶ In April 2021, the New York Times criticized Berger Action Fund for its grants to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) funding and fiscal sponsorship nonprofit part of a multibillion-dollar “dark money” network managed by Arabella Advisors, a consulting firm in Washington, DC. ⁷

Connections to Arabella Advisors, The Hub Project

For more information, see The Hub Project

The Hub Project, a left-wing group created to aid Democrats in elections and sponsored by Arabella Advisors‘ multibillion-dollar “dark money” network through its Sixteen Thirty Fund, may have originated as a proposal by the Wyss Foundation. According to a 2015 proposal entitled “A Plan for the Development of a Communications Hub Supporting The Wyss Foundation’s Core Issue Areas” prepared for the Wyss Foundation by Civitas Public Affairs Group, a liberal consulting firm, the foundation envisioned the creation of a “communications hub” meant to be established as an “independent organization with a fiscal sponsor” with the “flexibility to work across the spectrum of 501(c)(3), (h) election, and 501(c)(4) activities.” That sponsor needed to have “(c)(4) capacity” and the ability to set aside “15 to 25 percent of the budget for (c)(4) work funded by The Wyss Action Fund.” The Wyss Action Fund (renamed the “Berger Action Fund” in 2016) is the 501(c)(4) advocacy nonprofit arm of the Wyss Foundation, and responsible for funding the hub’s fiscal sponsor, another 501(c)(4) nonprofit. ¹⁷

While the document does not name Arabella Advisors or its associated 501(c)(4) Sixteen Thirty Fund and 501(c)(3) New Venture Fund—the respective sponsors of the Hub Project and Hub Education and Engagement Fund—few fiscal sponsorship structures of such scope existed in 2015 to support such a project. ¹⁷

This “hub” was designed to “drive measurable change” and achieve “significant wins.” Its “core objective” was “to dramatically shift the public debate and policy positions of core decision makers” by developing “research-based message frames,” ultimately “leading to implementation of policy solutions at the local, state, and federal level.” As a hub, these goals would be largely driven by allied left-wing organizations in coalition with the Hub Project, which would provide campaign aid, research, and political advertising. ¹⁷

Overseeing this was intended to be an advisory board “initially comprised of members of the The Wyss Foundation senior team and a representative from the fiscal sponsor.” The document also stresses the importance of distancing the “hub” from the Wyss Foundation, as “the hub’s independence will give the foundation appropriate separation from the hub’s work” (thereby avoiding scrutiny and the loss of its tax-exempt status) and “allow the hub to engage in a more robust way than it could if it was based within the foundation.” However, the hub would provide “quarterly updates for The Wyss Foundation identifying benchmarks that have been reached, challenges faced, and recommendations necessary” for achieving its annual objectives. ¹⁷

The initial budget for this hub was $2,212,760 in 2015, rising to $4,122,175 in 2016, and $4,347,196 in 2017. In 2017, $800,000 of this budget was to be set aside for “original news content” and “earned media,” another $786,500 for research and “digital data management,” and $865,000 for “paid media and “creative design” work. ¹⁷ Whether these goals were met is unclear, as the Hub Project does not publicly release its internal budgets.

Controversies and Criticism

Illegal Election Intervention Complaint (2021)

On May 15, 2021, the right-leaning watchdog Americans for Public Trust (APT) filed a complaint (archived here) with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which oversees political groups’ spending, alleging violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act by Hansjorg Wyss, the Wyss Foundation, the Berger Action Fund, the New Venture Fund (in its capacity as the parent of the Hub Project), and Sixteen Thirty Fund. ¹⁸ According to APT, “Mr. Wyss indirectly funded federal electoral advocacy through his nonprofit organizations,” failing to set them up as political action committees (PACs), and “the intended recipient of these funds was ultimately a variety of organizations whose primary purpose is to engage in electoral advocacy.”

Organizations which receive contributions in excess of $1,000 or makes contributions in excess of $1,000 in a calendar year is considered a PAC for the major purpose of influencing elections. PACs are subject to strict financial reporting requirements that 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) nonprofits are not. ¹⁹ The complaint points out that the Wyss Foundation, Berger Action Fund, and New Venture Fund, which are all 501(c) nonprofits, have failed to file a statement of organization with the FEC, despite Wyss contributing at least $56.5 million from the Wyss Foundation to the New Venture Fund and another $135 from the Berger Action Fund to the Sixteen Thirty Fund. The 501(c)(4) Sixteen Thirty Fund spent $30 million influencing the 2018 midterm elections in order to favor Democratic candidates, “thereby triggering classification as a political committee,” according to APT.

U.S. law strictly prohibits foreign nationals from making direct or indirect contributions to political action committees. ²⁰ Wyss, who was born in Switzerland, resides in the U.S. under an “E-2 VISA” (which is intended for foreign investors who live and work in the country) and “is not a permanent resident of the U.S. under a ‘green card,’” according to his attorney. ²¹ The complaint cites $41,000 in illegal federal campaign contributions Wyss paid between 1998 and 2003, claiming that, “Since that time, [Wyss] has made indirect contributions and expenditures by means of an intricate network of organizations in a scheme to obscure his role as the source of these funds.” ²²

APT alleges that Wyss established the Hub Project, a front for the “dark money” funder New Venture Fund and the recipient of significant funding from the Wyss Foundation, in order “to avoid any connection with the sizeable election activities carried out by the Hub Project and Change Now,” a super PAC associated with the Hub Project. “Operating since 2015
without the requisite FEC filing,” APT writes, “the Hub Project has been immune to any oversight and accountability despite significant spending in federal election.” It adds:

The Hub Project has served as a vehicle for the political spending of Mr. Wyss. This is demonstrated by the fact that Mr. Wyss has not publicly disclosed his role in founding the Hub Project. Neither his influence nor his financial support can be found anywhere on the group’s website. Rather, information regarding his involvement with the Hub Project was the result of “interviews with five people with knowledge of The Hub Project, an internal memo from another liberal group that was obtained by The New York Times.”

2016 “Democracy Strategy” Memo

In 2016, leaked emails released on Wikileaks revealed that senior officials at Wyss Foundation shared the details of a five-year, $100 million, nonpartisan “Democracy Strategy” with John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, just before the 2016 election, potentially constituting illicit partisan activity. ²³

The email, sent to Podesta by Matt Hollamby, a program officer at the Wyss Foundation, included a memo which claimed that increased turnout among traditionally Democratic-leaning demographics was vital to the success of the Wyss Foundation’s “issue agenda.” The memo recommended that, from 2016 to 2020, the Foundation should spend $24 million on anti-voter ID litigation and automatic voter registration advocacy, $25 million on “engagement” work among existing voters, and $50 million on a “registration surge” among “progressive” demographics designed to “transform the electorate.” ²³

The email also shows that the idea for the “registration surge” came from “Corridor’s registration model,” referring to a voter registration model developed by Corridor Partners, a left-leaning consulting firm, earlier that year. ²⁴ Emails released by Wikileaks show that Bill Roberts, principal at Corridor Partners, shared the plan with Molly McUsic, the Wyss Foundation’s president, who immediately shared it with Podesta, describing it as the “new c3 version.” ²⁵

2023 Report by APT on Foreign Election Interference

On July 10, 2023, right-of-center watchdog group Americans for Public Trust (APT) released a report accusing the Wyss Foundation and its advocacy arm Berger Action Fund donated roughly $475 million, since their inception, towards a series of left-of-center nonprofit organizations. ^{26 27} Though Wyss is registered as a foreign national and cannot directly support U.S political candidates or campaigns, theAPT’s report states that many of these donations have gone towards election-related efforts. Several nonprofit organizations that received donations from both foundations include Arabella Advisors-managed New Venture Fund and Sixteen Thirty Fund ($265 million in total), the Center for American Progress (CAP), the Fund for a Better Future (FBF), the Leage of Conservation Voters (LCV), the National Redistricting Action Fund (NRAF), Planned Parenthood, and Indivisible. ²⁷ The report claims that these donations from Wyss-affiliated organizations were meant to invest in U.S election and campaign-related activities including supporting, “get-of-the-vote” efforts, partisan-driven voter registration, ballot initiatives, and attack ads.” ²⁷ In addition, the report claims that the Hub Project, an advocacy organization that might have originated as a proposal by the Wyss Foundation in 2015, was created to, “control the flow of Arabella money to progressive candidates and initiatives [and]…to mobilize voters and disseminate media.” ^{27 26}

Legal Representation of Marc Elias

In 2022, the Wyss Foundation reported paying the Elias Law Group $61,251 for consulting services. ²⁸ The Elias Law Group is the law firm of Marc Elias, a longtime lawyer for the Democratic Party who was represented Hillary Clinton’s campaign at the Perkins Coie law firm in 2016 when he was involved in making payments to procure the now-discredited Steele dossier that sparked the Trump-Russia Collusion Claims scandal. ²⁹ In 2021, when Elias was still working at Perkins Coie, the Wyss Foundation paid Perkins Coie $24,752 for consulting services. ³⁰ On its homepage the Elias Law Group’s website says, “Elias Law Group is a mission-driven firm committed to helping Democrats win, citizens vote, and progressives make change.” ³¹

In 2021, a complaint was filed with the FEC by the right-leaning watchdog organization, Americans for Public Trust, alleging that Hansjorg Wyss, the Wyss Foundation, and the Berger Action Fund were using nonprofits within the Arabella Advisors network to violate laws prohibiting foreign nationals from giving to political action committees (PACs). Marc Elias, then working at Perkins Coie, personally represented the Wyss Foundation in the matter. The complaint was dismissed by the FEC in 2022 after a 3-3 deadlocked vote of the FEC commissioners. ³²

Post-2024 Criticisms

In November 2025, the state of Nebraska sued several nonprofit organizations over allegations they illegally spent over $10 million in foreign contributions whilst supporting state ballot initiatives between 2022 and 2024. The nonprofit groups in question included the Wyss Foundation, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the Berger Action Fund, the New Venture Fund, the Hopewell Fund and the Fairness Project. According to Nebraska State Attorney General Mike Hilgers, the organizations in question violated a 2022 state law barring foreign nationals from funding state ballot campaigns and initiatives. Hilgers also alleged that Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss had previously sent donations to be passed through the nonprofits for the purpose of funding several local ballot initiatives. ³³

Funding

Financial Overview

An overview of the Wyss Foundation’s finances from 2002 to 2020 is available below, including payments to its associated 501(c)(4) lobbying wing, the Berger Action Fund (formerly Wyss Action Fund): ³⁴

Grants from Wyss Foundation

The Wyss Foundation categorizes its philanthropic investments in three areas: Land, Communities, and Discovery. In the foundation’s 2013 tax returns, over $19 million in grants were awarded.

In 2016, the Wyss Foundation’s more notable gifts included three grants, totaling over $1 million, in support of civic participation; grants were in support of projects aimed at helping local and state governments provide voter registration services and studying why people choose not to vote.³⁵

The Wyss Foundation is a major donor to the left-of-center New Venture Fund (formerly the Arabella Legacy Fund), a 501(c)(3) funding and fiscal sponsorship nonprofit that’s part of a multibillion-dollar “dark money” activist network run by the consultancy Arabella Advisors in Washington, DC. Between 2007 and 2018, the Wyss Foundation donated $37,712,600 to New Venture Fund, but it isn’t clear how that money was spent since the grant descriptions do not provide specific details about which New Venture Fund projects they supported. ³⁶ Part of this sum came from the HJW Foundation (as in “Hansjorg Wyss”), a separate foundation associated with Hansjorg Wyss that was folded into the Wyss Foundation in 2013. ¹¹

The Wyss Foundation’s action fund has supported the National Redistricting Action Fund (NRAF), the left-wing redistricting group run by former Attorney General Eric Holder. The Berger Action Fund, the advocacy arm of the Wyss Foundation, donated $3 million the NRAF between 2018 and 2020. ³⁷

According to a November 2025 report by the Washington Free Beacon, the Wyss Foundation’s 2024 990 tax forms show that the organization spent over $40 million in grants to advocacy groups that promote left-of-center environmentalist and “climate justice” policies. Listed organizations included $16.1 million to the Nature Conservancy, $8.5 million to the Conservation Fund, $470,000 to the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, and donations to similar organizations including Re:wild, the Conservation Lands Foundation, and the Wilderness Society. ³⁸

In December 2025, the Wyss Foundation released a statement announcing it had donated a $2.3 million grant to the think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). In a statement, Wyss Foundation president Molly McUsic stated “Lingering inflation brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with uncertainty around new economic policies is causing distress for many working families already living on the edge…the Center’s work to ensure that everyone has the resources they need to thrive is vitally important, and we are proud to support this effort.” ³⁹

The following are all known grants from the Wyss Foundation between 2017 and 2020: ⁴⁰

Board and Key Staff

Hansjorg Wyss is the chairman and principal funder of the Wyss Foundation, providing $35 million to the Foundation in 2017.⁴¹ Wyss made his fortune as the CEO of medical device manufacturer Synthes, which was bought in 2012 by Johnson and Johnson.⁴² In 2009, Synthes faced 52 felony counts stemming from allegations that it illegally experimented on patients, three of whom died.⁴³ The alleged conduct occurred from 2001 to 2004, in which patients were injected with the company’s bone-cement product, Norian, despite the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s refusal to approve the product. Four high-ranking executives pleaded guilty for the company’s crime of running unauthorized trials and promoting the product for unapproved uses, without conceding that they were involved in the crime. Wyss was not charged.⁴³

The Wyss Foundation website does not list staff or board members, but according to the Foundation’s 2021 IRS informational return, the following individuals serve on the board and staff: ¹⁰

• Hansjorg Wyss serves as chairman.
• Joseph Fisher serves as treasurer.
• Molly McUsic is the Wyss Foundation president & director.
• Mary Killingsworth is the foundation’s vice president.

Additional staff, including president Molly McUsic, have previously served within the Clinton administration. In addition, previous consultants for the organization have also been connected to high-level positions of the Obama administration.⁴⁴

In 2012 Kyle Herrig was listed among the Wyss Foundation’s top-paid employees (total compensation: $74,887) and again in 2013 (total compensation: $81,911). ⁴⁵ Herrig is the former managing director for the New Venture Fund. New Venture Fund is managed by philanthropic Firm Arabella Advisors and is also part of the latter’s multibillion-dollar “dark money” network. As of 2023, he is the senior advisor for left-of-center activist group Accountable.US, a board member for former New Venture Fund project American Oversight, and the executive director of government watchdog group Congressional Integrity Project (CIP). ^{46 47}