Skip to content

Michael E. Hartmann

Michael E. Hartmann is a senior fellow at the Capital Research Center and a co-editor of the Giving Review. He is a former director of research and program officer at the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and has been a visiting fellow of the Philanthropy Roundtable.
Articles by Michael E. Hartmann

Foreign Agents and American Nonprofits

Casey Michel’s Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy around the World explores the growing problem of foreign funding of U.S. nonprofits in order to exert political influence. Addressing this issue might be the best initial opportunity for cross-ideological, bipartisan cooperation toward meaningful nonprofit-sector reform—perhaps leading to broad­er, bolder efforts against Big Philanthropy and its increasingly stretched definitions of charity…

Read More

The Tenuous Place of Big Philanthropy in America’s Social Contract

The power of big corporations and other large private interests has attracted more attention from within a conservatism that’s refining or redefining itself, occasionally contentiously. For example, Compact magazine cofounder and editor Sohrab Ahmari explores private tyranny and countervailing power in his new book Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty—and What to Do…

Read More

Big Philanthropy and the Benefits—and Limits—of the Bygone “Grand Bargain”

Big Philanthropy is now on the defensive, however. Increasingly aggressive critiques of it often, though not always, focus on alleged violations of the Grand Bargain. These critiques are cross-ideological. Many progressives and activists think the bargain’s terms have come to allow too much latitude for anti-democratic oligarchs, for example. Meanwhile, some populist conservatives…

Read More

Philanthropy on the Defensive

Establishment philanthropy in America is on the defensive—as it should be. Measured in terms of its size, the philanthropic sector is big and getting bigger; this is not necessarily a bad development in itself, but the sector’s growth in recent decades has been striking. Ideologically, the largest foundations’ policy-oriented grantmaking is lopsidedly liberal and getting…

Read More
Sorry, PDF downloads are available
to subscribers only.

Subscribe

Already subscribed?
Sign In With Your AAJ Account | Sign In with Blink