The New York Times Company Foundation is a tax-exempt entity closely linked to the New York Times Company, a major source of its funds. This Foundation reflects the political and cultural values of the Sulzberger family which,  through its near-monopoly control of voting stock, effectively controls the company and its holdings such as the Boston Globe and The New York Times. The Foundation also directs the philanthropies of The Boston Globe Foundation.

The Chairman of the New York Times Company Foundation is former company Chairman and former Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger, father of the current company Chairman and Times Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr.  One member of its Board is Judith P. Sulzberger, sister of the younger Arthur.

The Foundation conducts “week-long immersion courses” — called New York Times Institutes — “on important news subjects for journalists from around the country.” Since 2004, the Foundation has provided theatre grants in conjunction with the Alliance for Resident Theatres/New York. Such grants have the potential to influence what productions are done, and by whom.

The New York Times Company Foundation provides matching gifts of $1.50 for each dollar contributed by New York Times Company employees and retirees to “eligible” organizations. To be eligible, an organization must be either tax-exempt or governmental, and it must be involved in journalism, education, culture or environmentalism. This matching gift program thus has the effect of encouraging employee donations to mostly leftist organizations. Organizations chosen by Times Company employees that therefore received matching gifts from the Times Company Foundation include Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and WBAI (the New York City radio station owned and run by Pacifica Radio).

The list of organizations chosen in recent years by New York Times Company Foundation officials to receive grants includes, among others, the American Friends Service Committee; the Aspen Institute; the Brookings Institution; the Children’s Defense Fund; the Environmental Defense Fund; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; the National Organization for Women Legal Defense and Education Fund; National Public Radio; the National Security Archive; the National Urban League; the Natural Resources Defense Council; the Nature Conservancy; Planned Parenthood; the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund; the Rainforest Alliance; the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund; the Urban Institute; the Wilderness Society; the World Resources Institute; the World Wildlife Fund; and the YWCA of Boston.

To view a list of additional noteworthy grantees of the New York Times Company Foundation, click here.

One analysis found that 98 percent of grant dollars given by the New York Times Company Foundation (to organizations with an ideological bent) went to groups that lean left. Only two percent of Times Company Foundation grant dollars went to groups that might be called conservative — the American Enterprise Institute, the libertarian Manhattan Institute, and the Media Institute.

A study by the Media Research Center found that leftist groups given grants by the New York Times Foundation also tend to get favorable coverage in the news and opinion pages of the newspaper. For example, during a period when it was receiving tens of thousands of dollars from this Foundation, the Environmental Defense Fund got nearly twice as many mentions in The New York Times as it did in the Los Angeles Times, and almost three times as many as in the Washington Post.

The New York Times Company Foundation has a college scholarship program; it provides funds for Manhattan public elementary school P.S. 111, named for former Times owner and publisher Adolph S. Ochs; and it administers the “Neediest Fund” of the Times‘ “Help the Neediest” fundraising campaigns. Following the Islamist terrorist attacks of 9-11, a special appeal for this fund raised more than $52 million in donations, almost all of which was disbursed to worthy organizations to help people hit by the horror.

The New York Times Company Foundation, according to its own 9-11 “Neediest” list, sent a total of $700,000 to such traditionally leftwing legal activist groups as the Legal Aid Society, Legal Services for New York City, Pro Bono Net, and the Urban Justice Center.

In April, 2009, The York Times Company Foundation announced that it was suspending grant-making and the company’s matching gift program. However, they still continue to file a 990 Form with the IRS.

(Information on grantees and monetary amounts courtesy of The Foundation Center, GuideStar, ActivistCash, the Capital Research Center and Undue Influence)