Giving Compass' Take:

· After news that the Donald J. Trump Foundation will be shutting down due to a "shocking pattern of illegality," Luke Darby explains how philanthropy has been used as a political tool for all kinds of illegal activity. 

· What are the motivations behind using philanthropy and charities in illegal activities? How can this be prevented? 

· Here's more on the role of philanthropy in today’s political landscape.

On Tuesday, Donald Trump agreed to shut down his charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation. The move comes in response to a lengthy investigation by New York attorney general's office into various allegations of criminal misconduct, and there's a lot of seedy details in the reporting around the foundation—like Trump using it to pay for portraits of himself, or to buy a Tim Tebow-autographed helmet. David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post has been reporting on the Trump Foundation since the 2016 presidential campaign, and he laid out just a few of the swirling issues to PBS:

  • First, Trump used the foundation as kind of a checkbook for himself. Nominally, this money was in an independent charity. It had its own charitable aims. It was supposed to spend money for charity. He used the money to settle business disputes, to settle legal disputes involving his for-profit businesses.
  • So he used the charity's money to save his businesses $260,000 on legal settlements. He also use the charity's money to buy portraits of himself, including one that hung up on the wall at one of his golf clubs. And he in the 2016 campaign basically turned over his campaign — his charity to his campaign, and let his campaign dictate when money was raised and when money was given out, including with big checks that he gave out in the middle of his campaign rallies in Iowa and New Hampshire.

In short, Farenthold says, Trump used the charity to support his campaign and to help sell the image of himself as filthy rich. This is a galling and cynical use of something that is supposed to help people who need it, but the truth is that Trump isn't alone among fabulously wealthy people in setting up nonprofit organizations that put their own interests above the public good they claim to serve.

Read the full article about philanthropy as a political tool by Luke Darby at GQ.