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ACLU Donor Withdraws $20M Gift

David Gelbaum provided one quarter of the budget

by
Marc Tracy
December 10, 2009

We noted earlier today that l’affaire Madoff continues to have an adverse effect on philanthropy. And today brought news of another apparently hard-hit Jewish donor: David Gelbaum, a major clean-tech venture capitalist who has invested in several Israeli start-ups, has withdrawn his annual $20 million donation to the American Civil Liberties Union. (Actually, Gelbaum is an anonymous donor; or is supposed to be, anyway.) The $200 million gift represents a quarter of the ACLU’s operating budget. And the organization has already faced significant cutbacks over the past year … thanks to Madoff.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.