OBAMAS HAVE A BILLION OPTIONS
O foundation’s fund-amentals
In the year after Barack Obama left the White House, his nonprofit has raked in hundreds of millions in donations from everyone from corporate titans to moneyed celebrities.
The Chicago-based Barack Obama Foundation also altered its charitable mission, which was originally set up in 2014 to build a presidential library in Chicago.
Now the foundation wants “to inspire, empower and connect people to change their world,” according to the group’s most recent tax filings.
In the year that Michelle and Barack Obama began actively fundraising, the nonprofit’s donations soared from $13,175,732 in 2016 to $231,993,748 in 2017, filings show.
The windfall includes four $25 million contributions from unnamed donors and $10 million from the New York Community Trust, a coalition of New York charities with more than $2.8 billion in assets, according to that group’s 2017 filings to the IRS.
Among the donors who gave $1 million or more to the Obama Foundation are family friend Oprah Winfrey, the Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund and the George Lucas Family Foundation, according to the Obama Foundation’s Web site.
Internet billionaire Mark Benioff and his wife, Lynne, also donated in the $1 million category at the end of 2017.
Last November, Michelle Obama was the keynote speaker at his annual Salesforce tech convention in San Francisco where she participated in a “fireside chat” with Benioff, who is the company’s founder and CEO.
In September 2017, Barack Obama delivered the keynote address at an event hosted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. A month later, the Microsoft couple’s foundation showed up on the Obama Foundation’s list of 60 $1 millionplus donors, according to the group’s Web site.
Among the Obama Foundation’s biggest expenditures was $2.1 million on travel in 2017, up from $176,150 in the previous year. A spokeswoman said the travel costs covered all foundation-related travel for staff and the Obama couple as well as travel for participants to the group’s international conferences.
The Obama Foundation is raising funds to build a $500million, four-building presidential center and library on Chicago’s South Side. Although the Chicago City Council voted unanimously to green-light the project, many local residents voiced concerns about the massive complex, which they fear will drive up property values, destroy green space and displace many impoverished residents in the area.