David DesJardins

He is a top donor to Democratic candidates and causes. DesJardins also serves on the board of George Soros’s Democracy Alliance and is involved in DA-connected groups including the Scholars Strategy Network and Agenda Project.

Personal Life

David desJardins received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983 and completed a Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley in 2002.¹

DesJardins is married to Nancy Blachman,² a mathematician and computer scientist.³ The couple has two children, Sarah and Louis.³

Career

In 1999, desJardins became Google’s 20^th employee, working as a software engineer until 2005. He was an early investor in companies such as Cloudera,⁴ ScanScout,⁵ and 23andme.⁶ He was a board member of Tigerlabs technology incubator.⁷

Political Activities

DesJardins has given $2,174,138 to Democratic candidates and causes between 2000 and 2016⁸ including $200,000 each to the Sierra Club and House Majority PAC.⁹ In both 2012 and 2014, he gave $100,000 to American Bridge 21^st Century,⁹ a Democratic-aligned Super PAC founded by Media Matters for America creator David Brock.¹⁰

In the 2012 election cycle, desJardins was one of Silicon Valley’s top ten Democratic super-donors, giving $965,100 to Democrats only.¹¹ During that year, he was also among the Sunlight Foundation’s “Political 1% of 1%,” putting him in the top 31,385 (.01% of the U.S. population at the time) disclosed political givers.¹²

In the 2014 race for California Superintendent of Public Instruction, desJardins gave $63,000 to back school reformer Marshall Tuck in an unsuccessful effort to unseat teacher union-backed incumbent Tom Torlakson.¹³

Philanthropy

DesJardins and his wife Nancy Blachman created the desJardins-Blachman Foundation¹⁴ and the desJardins/Blachman Fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a donor advised fund¹⁵ with contributions to the Center for Science in the Public Interest,¹⁶ the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund,¹⁷ and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities¹⁸ which receives support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.¹⁹

The desJardins/Blachman Fund has also supported a number of liberal organizations including the Campaign Legal Center,²⁰ the Roosevelt Institute,²¹ and the Brennan Center for Justice.²²

The couple is listed as a major funder of the PBS documentary series Point of View²³ and has contributed to the Sierra Club Foundation.²⁴

DesJardins serves as a trustee of the UC – Berkeley Foundation²⁵ and a member of the Corporation of MIT.²⁶

DesJardins is a board member of Democracy Alliance.²⁷ He is on the steering committee of the Scholars Strategy Network,²⁸ a group of progressive academics²⁹ which is among 180 organizations connected with the Democracy Alliance.³⁰

In 2007, with funding from the Democracy Alliance, desJardins joined fellow DA members Daniel Berger and Guy Saperstein to found the New Ideas Fund.³¹ In her 2009 book, The Practical Progressive: How to Build a Twenty-first Century Political Movement, DA co-founder Erica Payne writes that the New Ideas Fund “provides grants to promising scholars to establish a foundation for a progressive thought infrastructure in national security and foreign policy.”³²

DesJardins is among 200 members of Patriotic Millionaires, which advocates higher taxes.³³

Emails obtained and released by Wikileaks revealed that desJardins was among a handful of wealthy liberals considered for solicitation to fund a D.C.-based policy group called the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, founded and steered by John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chair.³⁴