Posted on 12/16/2009 6:43:04 AM PST by mikelets456
NEW YORK (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union has lost a quarter of its yearly donations after a major donor cut off $19 million in annual donations because of economic difficulties.
David Gelbaum, a wealthy California conservationist, said he was indefinitely stopping the donations that had made him the New York-based group's largest anonymous donor.
"For a number of years, your organization has received very substantial charitable contributions from me," Gelbaum said in a statement. "My investments in alternative, clean energy companies have placed me in a highly illiquid position as a result of the general credit crisis in the American and world financial systems."
Gelbaum also announced he was halting some $12 million in yearly gifts to the Sierra Club Foundation and about $50 million a year that he's been giving to an organization serving veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gelbaum has given a total of $389 million to the groups from 2005 to 2009.
Gelbaum says he hopes others will step forward and replace his donations.
The New York Times named Gelbaum in a story published in the newspaper Wednesday. Gelbaum had previously funded those organizations anonymously.
"While we're clearly disappointed that his desire to remain anonymous was breached, we remain eternally grateful for everything he and his family have done to advance the cause of civil liberties for all Americans," ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said.
Romero also called Gelbaum an American hero, "an unassuming man with a spectacularly generous spirit."
(Excerpt) Read more at mme.com ...
Gelbaum deserves our gratitude for what he has done for the vets. We all cannot agree on everything. It is fine with me if he wants to underwrite alternative energy initiatives, even though I am a CAGW skeptic. I would love to be able to have cheap solar/wind/geothermal power at my disposal.
Their are some good things happen during a recession.
Maybe the people who were smarter than he was during the past year who went short on the ethanol companies, and other “alternative energy” schemes, will be able to step up for him here. Not in funding the Sierra Club, etc., but in funding people who will be able to deprogram the children and teachers who have been damaged by the hoax of AGW.
Really? Which one?...the USO? If I had been giving money to veterans, I would be up front and center about the whys and wherefors. Tigers have stripes, leopards have spots...communists lie!
“My investments in alternative, clean energy companies have placed me in a highly illiquid position as a result of the general credit crisis in the American and world financial systems.”
I’ve been hoping liberals would jump on the alternative energy financial sinkhole express. Looks like one whale did.
Gelbaum deserves our gratitude for what he has done for the vets. We all cannot agree on everything. It is fine with me if he wants to underwrite alternative energy initiatives, even though I am a CAGW skeptic. I would love to be able to have cheap solar/wind/geothermal power at my disposal.
You can have any of them right now... but they will never be 'cheap.' They are by definition, low density sources of energy which means they will always be more expensive.
I will be glad when that figure reaches funds down 100%.
May he invest everything he has in “clean energy”. :-)
As opposed to the huge amount of cheap nuclear power which we would have had decades ago without government (and idiot) interference?
Nuke power is fine too, but that isn’t where this guy is putting his money.
I have done well in the markets over the past year. I’m making Christmas donations to the Institute for Justice and the Heritage Foundation.
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