Wednesday, December 12, 2012

I've just received the Gannett Foundation's annual IRS tax report for 2011, and it's kind of interesting

Here's a list of $285,000 in foundation donations that current and former top executives directed to their favorite charities during 2011, the most recent year available. I received a copy of the IRS report yesterday following a request to Gannett's charitable arm under federal open-records laws.

In a separate post in the next day or so, I'll add a few more details.

Related: This spreadsheet shows all the executive-driven donations in 2010. And here's the list from 2009.

9 comments:

  1. Shameful that so much money is going to several elitist, well endowed colleges that dont need the money. What a fucking waste. And i see opera is in need, too.

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  2. Jim:

    What's the second tab that references the $250,000 for charities in Hawaii?

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  3. This gifting appears to be ego driven. I'm sure the trust fund babies wearing barrels at Wellesley are appreciative.

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  4. 1 p.m. I haven't written specifically about those yet. But to answer your question:

    The foundation gave $250,000 to those Hawaii charities in 2011 when, the previous year, I don't think it made any there. Those non-profits are all in Honolulu, by the way.

    I suspect these were made in connection with the company exiting Hawaii when it sold The Honolulu Advertiser in 2010. A guess: These were farewell gifts, a recognition that the company would no longer be supporting charities in the city.

    This is not unlike the foundation's continued support -- albeit declining -- of the Rochester Community Foundation. As most old timers know, Gannett was headquartered in Rochester during most of its history, until the move in 1986 to the D.C. area.

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  5. The only way these characters give anything is for something in return. And it's usually to pay off a debt from a previous part of their lives. They wouldn't know charity if it hit them in the ass.

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  6. To be clear, this is just Gannett Corporate donations, not the dollars donated locally from each Gannett Publisher via the Gannett Foundation Grant program.

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  7. 4:50 In total, the Gannett Foundation donated $5,376,104 in gifts and grants to U.S. and U.K. non-profits and for college scholarships during 2011, according to the tax report.

    That included $1.3 million in grants matching employee gifts to non-profits, dollar-for-dollar up to a maximum of $10,000 per employee per year. That's under the GannettMatch program.

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  8. I've used the gannettmatch program to match my gifts to 2 colleges, 3 health category and 2 others this year. I think it's a great program and nice that the company does this and offers employees the ability to have their contributions matched.

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  9. Craig Dubrow shouldn't be allowed to direct a set of Hot Wheels. If he wants to thank the Hospital of Special Surgery for fixing the spine of a spineless person, he should pay out of the $31 million he got form Gannett. SHAME!

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