Atlantic Philanthropies
private philanthropic foundation
The Atlantic Philanthropies (AP) was a private foundation created in 1982 by American businessman Chuck Feeney. The Atlantic Philanthropies focused its giving on health, social, and politically left-leaning public policy causes in Australia, Bermuda, Ireland, South Africa, the United States and Vietnam. It was among the largest foreign charitable donors in each of the countries in which it operated, and was the single largest funder of programs that encouraged the civic engagement of older people and of comprehensive immigration reform in the United States. With the single largest advocacy grant ever made by a foundation, the Atlantic Philanthropies committed $27 million to win passage of the Affordable Care Act in the United States. About half of the Atlantic Philanthropies' grants were made in donations that allow lobbying.
The Atlantic Philanthropies commenced a spend-down process in 2012, and planned to fully close down by 2020 after the remaining portion of Feeney's fortune was donated. On September 14, 2020, Feeney signed the documents to officially close the nonprofit in an online ceremony that included a congratulatory video message from Bill Gates.
History
Irish-American businessman Chuck Feeney established the Atlantic Philanthropies in Bermuda in 1982. The organization made its first grant of $7 million that same year to Cornell University.
Feeney, who co-founded Duty Free Shoppers (DFS), transferred all of his assets and his entire 38.75% ownership stake in DFS to what became the Atlantic Philanthropies in 1984.
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This entry incorporates text from “Atlantic Philanthropies” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.