NEW YORK — There’s a new, deep-pocketed liberal donor in town.
It’s called the Civic Participation Action Fund, and it’s run by a man named Stephen McConnell in Washington. Formed last year with $50 million, it has donated to at least three different Democrat-aligned super political action committees this year, including $1.5 million to mobilize immigrant voters for Hillary Clinton.
The fund’s money comes from the Atlantic Philanthropies, which has given away more than $7 billion since its creation by a billionaire retailer in 1982. Atlantic affiliates have long backed left-leaning policy initiatives, from opposing the death penalty to advocating for President Barack Obama’s health-care law, but they’ve rarely supported or opposed candidates before now.
“It is increasingly difficult to avoid partisan politics if you want to bring about significant changes in public policy,” McConnell said in an email. “From my view, the world around us has changed more than we have.”
McConnell’s group is unusual in the world of big-money politics, which, across the ideological spectrum, is dominated by the whims of individual wealthy donors. Its roots are more in the philanthropic world, where institutions tend to avoid politics because of tax laws and an aversion to controversy.
The fund owes its existence to the improbable career of a man named Chuck Feeney. Now 85, he grew up poor in New Jersey, made a fortune with a global chain of duty-free shops, and then set up Atlantic to give his wealth away quietly. His generosity was a closely guarded secret until 1997.
Most of Atlantic’s money has always gone to apolitical projects, such as university buildings and medical research around the world. One current high-profile endeavor is a $350 million commitment to help Cornell University build a new high-tech campus in New York City.
But under Gara LaMarche, who became Atlantic’s president in 2006, the group expanded its efforts to influence public policy, putting more than $200 million into a dedicated advocacy fund. Such “social welfare” funds don’t offer donors a tax deduction the way a charitable foundation, hospital or university does. But compared with charities, they are freer to lobby the government or support political candidates.
Atlantic aims to give Feeney’s money away within his lifetime, and it’s said it will complete the last of its grantmaking this year and prepare to shut down. That’s a problem for some groups that have come to rely on its largesse.
To help soften the blow, Atlantic set up McConnell’s fund as an independent social welfare organization last year, giving him $50 million and five years to spend it. McConnell was previously a top official at Atlantic and at the Alzheimer’s Association.
McConnell said his fund focuses on helping poor people and minorities get more involved in the democratic process — the issues themselves are a means to that end. “We hope to make the electorate look more like the population,” he said in an email. Early grants have supported groups working to reduce incarceration, and this year it spent $500,000 on an effort to raise the minimum wage in Colorado.