Zaitlin-Nienberg Family Fund

The Zaitlin-Nienberg Family Fund is the philanthropic giving vehicle for left-of-center activists Jody “Jaz” Zaitlin and Mark Nienberg of Kensington, California. It does not file financial reports with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and may be a donor-advised fund within a larger charitable organization. 1

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At-A-Glance

Type: Non-profit, 501(c)(3), Fiscally Sponsored Project
Issue Areas: Environmental Policy
Location: Kensington, CA View on map

Contents

    Creators

    The Zaitlin-Nienberg Family Fund is the philanthropic giving vehicle for left-of-center activists Jody “Jaz” Zaitlin and Mark Nienberg of Kensington, California. The couple are both retired. Zaitlin is the former environmental planner of the Port of Oakland, while Nienberg was an IT professional and network administrator for businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area. 2 3 4

    Grantmaking

    Recipients’ tax filings and public donor disclosures show that Zaitlin-Nienberg Family Fund supports several left-of-center organizations, especially in areas of environmental policy. Organizations that have publicly thanked the Fund for donations include Greenbelt Alliance,5 William J. Brennan Center for Justice, 6 Center for Public Integrity, 7 Real News Network, 8 350.org, 9 Center for Investigative Reporting, 10 Environmental Working Group, 11 Equal Rights Advocates, 12 Public Citizen, 13 Rainforest Action Network, 14 Truthout, 15 Rocky Mountain Institute, 16 Corporate Accountability International, 17 Texas Freedom Network, 18 Women’s Foundation of California, 19 and the Economic Policy Institute. 20  The majority of the fund’s disclosed donations appear to be in the $1,000 to $10,000 range. 7

    The Fund also supports smaller environmental and outdoor recreation groups in the San Francisco Bay Area. 21 22 23

    Political Activities

    Zaitlin and Nienberg are politically active in addition to their philanthropic giving. Between 2019 and 2022, Nienberg donated $14,000 to Democratic-aligned political action committees. 24 Zaitlin is more active, giving $250,000 in 2024 to the Project 218 PAC, which supported Democratic candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. 25 26 She is also a regular donor to the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Victory Fund, donating $210,000 to the PAC between 2018 and 2022. 25

    In 2022, Nienberg was a co-signatory to public comments filed by Green America with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) supporting the agency’s proposed “climate disclosure rule” and urging the SEC to make it more stringent. 27

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    References

    1.  IRS Exempt Organization Search Tool returns no results for “Zaitlin-Nienberg Family Fund.”
    2. Curwood, Steve. “Combating Bio-Invaders.” Living On Earth, November 12, 1999. https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=99-P13-00046&segmentID=1.
    3. Nienberg, Mark. “Thread: [Smartmontools-Support]Build from Cvs on Fedora 4 X86_64.” Sourceforge, January 25, 2006. https://sourceforge.net/p/smartmontools/mailman/smartmontools-support/thread/43D6D978.7050104%40tippingmar.com/.
    4. “Working Waterfront: in Their Own Words.” Bay Crossings. Accessed January 6, 2025. http://baycrossings.org/dispnews.php?id=735.
    5. “2020 Annual Report.” Greenbelt Alliance, March 19, 2021. https://www.greenbelt.org/2020-annual-report/.
    6. “2022 Annual Report.” Brennan Center for Justice, 2023. https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/2024-01/Brennan%20Center_2022_Annual_Report_Webupdated12024%5B96%5D.pdf
    7. Our donors – center for public integrity. Accessed January 6, 2025. https://archive.publicintegrity.org/about/our-donors/.
    8. “About the Real News Network.” The Real News Network. Accessed January 6, 2025. https://therealnews.com/about.
    9.  “2019 Annual Report: Financial Data.” 350, February 4, 2021. https://350.org/2019-annual-report-financials/.
    10. “2023 Impact Report.” The Center for Investigative Reporting, November 2023. https://revealnews.org/about-us/impact-resources/.
    11. “Environmental Working Group Annual Report 2011.” Environmental Working Group, 2012. https://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReportArchive/e/environmental-working-group_2009.pdf.
    12. “2020 Individual Donors.” Equal Rights Advocates, May 6, 2021. https://www.equalrights.org/2020-individual-donors/.
    13. Private equity’s path of destruction in health care … Accessed January 6, 2025. https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/March-PC-News-copy.pdf.
    14. “Revel 2022 – Challenge Corporate Power.” Rainforest Action Network. Accessed January 6, 2025. https://www.ran.org/revel2022/.
    15.  “Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax – 2019.” Truthout, 2020. https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2021/06/Truthout-FY2019-990.pdf.
    16. “Thank You, Donors.” Rocky Mountain Institute, 2022. https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2022/11/rmi_2022_annual_report_donors.pdf.
    17. “Annual Report 2020.” Corporate Accountability, December 2020. https://corporateaccountability.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Corporate-Accountability_AnnualReport_2020_12.pdf.
    18. “2022 Annual Report.” Texas Freedom Network, 2022. https://tfn.org/cms/assets/uploads/reports/2022_Annual_Report.pdf.
    19. “2010-11 Annual Report.” Women’s Foundation of California, 2011. https://www.issuelab.org/resources/24542/24542.pdf.
    20. “Funder Acknowledgments and Disclosure Principles.” Economic Policy Institute. Accessed January 6, 2025. https://www.epi.org/about/funder-acknowledgments-and-disclosure-principles/.
    21. “El Cerrito Open Space Campaign Donors Old.” El Cerrito Trail Trekkers. Accessed January 6, 2025. https://www.ectrailtrekkers.org/el-cerrito-open-space-campaign-donors-old.html.
    22. “2020 Annual Report.” Golden Gate Bird Alliance, 2020. https://goldengatebirdalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GGAS-2020-Annual-Report-Final-Online.pdf
    23. “2016 Annual Report.” Save SF Bay, March 2016. https://savesfbay.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2016_Save-The-Bay_Annual-Report.pdf.
    24. “Donation Search: Mark Nienberg.” OpenSecrets. Accessed January 6, 2025. https://www.opensecrets.org/search?q=mark%2Bnienberg&type=donors.
    25. “Donor Lookup.” OpenSecrets. Accessed January 6, 2025. https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?cand=&cycle=&employ=&name=Jody%2BZaitlin&order=desc&sort=D&state=CA&zip=.
    26. “Schedule E.” Schedule E for Report FEC-1858479. Accessed January 6, 2025. https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00871368/1858479/se.
    27. “Comments: June 16, 2022.” U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, June 16, 2022. https://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-10-22/s71022-20131486-301815.pdf.