In 2023, following passage of the Donor Intent Protection Act in Kansas, Philanthropy Roundtable launched a monthly series on donor intent developments and controversies nationwide to better inform you about this important topic. The Donor Intent Protection Act has now passed in Kentucky, Georgia and Montana, and efforts to extend this legislation to other states will continue in 2026.
We encourage donors to contact us with any questions about our featured items and consult additional resources on donor intent at the Roundtable’s Donor Intent Hub. We also welcome any news about donor intent we may have missed.
This month’s Donor Intent Watch begins with a recent discussion of the value of a foundation archive in maintaining a philanthropic legacy. We close with a discussion of the spotlight-grabbing lawsuit filed by Elon Musk against Sam Altman which—although not legally characterized as such—is based on a violation of donor intent.
Foundation Archives: A Primary Resource for Donor Intent
The Foundation Review, a publication of the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University, recently published “Philanthropic Archives and Legacy.” Authored by Katherine Badertscher, Ph.D., and Huitan Xu, M.A., Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, the article offers a comprehensive discussion of the advantages and challenges foundations face keeping what may be vast amounts of physical and digital records.
Foundations are free to retain only those records which federal and state tax authorities require to be kept. For those foundations interested in maintaining some sort of archive, the authors note a series of questions to be answered: “Which records need to be preserved, for what audiences, in what formats, under what access conditions, and how should these records be maintained?”
Several large foundations have built significant and publicly accessible archives. The Rockefeller Archive Center in Westchester County, New York, holds the records of the many philanthropic efforts of the Rockefeller Family along with those of the Ford, Hewlett, Knight and other foundations. The Atlantic Philanthropies Archives are housed at Cornell University, alma mater of Atlantic’s donor, Charles “Chuck” Feeney. The Carnegie Collections are available at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Across the country, place-based foundations contribute their records to local libraries and historical societies.
Collectively, such archives preserve not only the history of philanthropy, but also the history of civil society. What were the most pressing social problems in a particular decade? In a specific place? What sort of popular movements developed to confront those problems? What responses were most or least effective? What lessons can contemporary donors learn from their generous predecessors?
Maintaining historical records is particularly useful in understanding, respecting, preserving and even restoring donor intent. In 2003, the Park Foundation of Ithaca, New York, split into two separate foundations. Roy Park, Jr. and his children left the Park Foundation board and launched the right-leaning Triad Foundation. Determined to correct his father’s misstep in leaving nothing in writing regarding his mission and intentions for his foundation, Roy Park, Jr. wrote a legacy statement codifying his father’s philanthropic values for future generations.
That statement, based on Roy Park’s grantmaking in his lifetime, along with his speeches and volunteer work, made clear his support of democracy and free enterprise, limited government, religious liberty, freedom of thought and broad access to education and employment. In his book, “Sons in the Shadows,” Park Jr. was even more adamant.
“My father’s legacy is not one to be forgotten, and what he worked for all his life should not be ignored or refuted. I was sensitive to erosion of his hardworking lifetime ideals, and despite the absence of his intentions for the foundation’s mission in his will, the philanthropic objectives that best reflected the interests of my side of the family were evident in the previous 30-year history of his grantmaking.”
In the early 2000s at the Daniels Fund in Denver, Colorado, trustees led a systematic process to restore and protect grantmaking based on its donor’s core values. Bill Daniels, an early investor in coaxial cable, profited considerably from the cable television boom of the 1980s and 1990s. Throughout his life, his charitable giving ranged widely. He reached out to those down on their luck, those who abused alcohol and drugs, and those who suffered from mental and physical disabilities.
He provided scholarships, with a focus on demonstrated character and leadership potential. He funded efforts to integrate ethics into business schools, and created a bank meant to teach young people the principles of finance and personal responsibility. Through it all, his giving was largely personal. Daniels routinely enclosed a note with each check, explaining to the recipient what he hoped his money would do.
When Daniels passed away in 2000, his estate transferred to the Daniels Fund, making it one of the largest foundations in the nation. Even though he believed he had clearly expressed his donor intent, he had failed to clarify the underlying values and principles that should guide the foundation’s giving. That omission, combined with professional staff whose worldviews differed from the donor’s, produced a culture unfriendly to Daniels’ original vision. Realizing Daniels’ original donor intent was being disregarded, the board led a five-year effort to ensure Bill Daniels’ intentions and ideals would underpin the way the foundation conducted its business.
Directors pored over their founder’s letters and writings. They carefully studied his giving history—Daniels had made charitable gifts for 25 years prior to his death—and interviewed numerous associates to better understand his intentions. After careful deliberation the directors defined grant areas, guidelines, and grantmaking parameters, all anchored in Daniels’ words and deeds.
They amended the foundation’s bylaws to include these new donor-intent documents— including ones that told Daniels’ story from beginning to end, creating a fuller profile of the man that left no doubt about his values and principles. To this day, the Bill Daniels archive and the stewardship provided by the senior vice president, legacy and donor intent, ensure Daniels’ wishes drive the foundation’s work.
Elon Musk, Open AI and a Question of Donor Intent
Philanthropy Roundtable’s Director of Policy Bill Osmulski has been following the lawsuit filed by Elon Musk against Sam Altman in February 2024. Musk alleged he and Altman had jointly launched Open AI as a nonprofit organization in 2015, and he had made gifts of roughly $44 million to that nonprofit with the purpose of developing AI as an open-source technology free to the public. Under Altman’s leadership, however, Open AI established subsidiary for-profit companies and eventually abandoned its commitment to open-source development.
Musk’s lawsuit demanded $150 billion in damages on the grounds Altman had, in essence, stolen a charity.
“If the verdict comes out that it’s okay to loot a charity,” Musk said, “charitable giving in America will be destroyed.”
The three-week trial ended without a clear verdict, with the jury ruling Musk had filed his lawsuit after the statute of limitations had passed. Although Musk never used the term “donor intent” in his allegations, it certainly appears his wishes regarding the use of his charitable gift were deliberately ignored.
