Garland Fund

The fund was experimental in nature, designed to spend itself out quickly, and funded projects that were deemed risky or unpopular at the time. Some of the groups it funded were the NAACP, the Industrial Workers of the World, the ACLU, the League for Industrial Democracy, and the American Birth Control League. The fund’s areas of focus included civil rights and the labor movement, and it funded socialist and Marxist initiatives such as Vanguard Press and New Masses.  ^{1  2}

History

Charles Garland initially endowed the Garland Fund with $1 million in 1922, which at the time, was roughly equivalent to $16 million today, according to The Wall Street Journal. Initially, Garland refused his inheritance over ethical concerns; however, he was later was convinced by others, including the socialist writer Upton Sinclair and American Civil Liberties Union executive director Roger Baldwin, to establish a social-advocacy fund. Baldwin became a board member of the fund. Garland eventually claimed his vision for the philanthropic principles of the fund were based on his reading of Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, and H. G. Wells, as well as the teachings of Jesus.  ^{1  2  3}

Garland claimed that the fund was intended to spend itself out as quickly as possible. Some of the fund’s areas of spending included civil rights court cases, labor organizations, anti-lynching campaigns, journalism, and legalizing birth control, according to the Los Angeles Times.  It supported groups such as the NAACP, the Industrial Workers of the World, the American Civil Liberties Union, the League for Industrial Democracy, and the American Birth Control League. The Garland Fund supported strike funds and Brookwood Labor College, which was a school for union organizers, according to The Wall Street Journal. The group also worked with the Communist Party USA and various socialist projects, such as Vanguard Press and New Masses. The fund disbursed $2 million during its operations, from 1922 to 1941, with most of the funding happening in the first six years.  ^{1  2  3}

The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America

In October 2025, John Fabian Witt, a law professor at Yale University, published The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America. The book was a history of the Garland Fund, detailing in large part the way in which “the first liberal philanthropic foundation of the age” spent its money. Witt claimed in a piece published in The New York Times that the Garland Fund had roughly the equivalent spending power of a 2020s foundation with $800 million when put in terms of the size of the economy in the 1920s. The Garland Fund was treated as an experiment which provided funding to many organizations that were overlooked by other contemporary grant makers. Witt proposed that the Garland Fund should be a model for modern grantmakers.  ^{4  1}

People

Charles Garland was the founder of the Garland Fund. Initially refusing to accept his inheritance of $1 million over ethical concerns, he was later convinced by Roger Baldwin, a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, to endow the Garland Fund with the money.  ³

Roger Baldwin was one of the main figures who guided Charles Garland to set up a fund with his inheritance and was reportedly the most influential board member. He was the Garland Fund’s board’s first secretary and received no compensation for the role.  ^{3  5}