Key Takeaways
- • Wallace Global Fund (WGF), a Washington, D.C.-based foundation, is deliberately spending its entire endowment down to zero and closing, reversing the conventional perpetual model of American philanthropy.
- • WGF has deployed more than $50 million in total, including nearly $24 million in U.S. grantmaking over the last 15 months, to frontline organizing, power-building and movement groups.
- • WGF began accelerating its payout to 20% in 2020 under a decade-long spend-out strategy, and the foundation says recent threats to democracy and climate justified an even faster pace.
- • The foundation is challenging peers to raise payouts "from 10 percent up to 100 percent where possible," with Dr. Dorsey (WGF leadership) arguing that foundations cannot declare emergencies while deploying only a fraction of their resources.
- • WGF's early backing of fossil-fuel divestment, which began in 2010, is cited by the foundation as a precedent; the movement now spans more than 1,700 institutions representing over $40 trillion in assets, according to the article.
Summary
Wallace Global Fund is deliberately spending its entire endowment to zero and closing its doors, a move the Washington, D.C.-based foundation frames as the logical conclusion of its mission rather than a retreat from it. According to the article, WGF committed to a decade-long spend-out strategy and began accelerating payouts to 20% in 2020. The foundation says that as it watched democratic erosion deepen, climate threats intensify and corporate and billionaire power grow, it decided the moment demanded a faster pace. To date, WGF has deployed more than $50 million, including nearly $24 million in U.S. grantmaking over the last 15 months, directed to frontline organizing and power-building groups.
The foundation's case rests on external indicators it cites. The article attributes to V-Dem's 2026 Democracy Report a 24% decline in the U.S. Liberal Democracy Index score in 2025, with the country falling from 20th to 51st among 179 nations. It also references a United Nations Environment Programme finding that global warming is likely to cross 1.5°C within the next few years. Against this backdrop, WGF is positioning its spend-down as a challenge to the sector. The Chronicle of Philanthropy reportedly found that 13% of surveyed foundations had plans to sunset and another 25% were discussing it.
The article places WGF's decision within the broader philanthropic financial picture. Citing the 2026 Gilded Giving report from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a longtime WGF partner, the article notes that the 144 U.S. private foundations with endowments above $1 billion had a median payout rate of 5.1% in 2024. IPS estimated that had billion-dollar-plus foundations paying below 10% reached that level, an additional $23.4 billion could have gone to charitable purposes that year. WGF's new report, ALL IN: Building Power, Scaling Change, Meeting the Moment, urges funders to examine not only how much they give but who they fund and how their endowments and institutional power are used.
WGF's approach also emphasizes long-term support for movements. Scott Fitzmorris, WGF Board Co-Chair and Henry A. Wallace's great-grandson, said that movements "are built over years through organizing, leadership development, forging relationships and building infrastructure." The foundation's fossil-fuel divestment work is presented as its clearest example: beginning in 2010 it moved its own endowment out of fossil fuels and mining, funded student activists and helped extend the campaign to cities, pension funds and faith institutions. The article notes WGF did not create the movement, but says its early resources helped turn it into a global force. WGF also says its portfolio delivered top-decile returns among foundations over the last full decade, a result Dr. Dorsey said reinforced the principle that "the mission and the money should point in the same direction."
The foundation's case rests on external indicators it cites. The article attributes to V-Dem's 2026 Democracy Report a 24% decline in the U.S. Liberal Democracy Index score in 2025, with the country falling from 20th to 51st among 179 nations. It also references a United Nations Environment Programme finding that global warming is likely to cross 1.5°C within the next few years. Against this backdrop, WGF is positioning its spend-down as a challenge to the sector. The Chronicle of Philanthropy reportedly found that 13% of surveyed foundations had plans to sunset and another 25% were discussing it.
The article places WGF's decision within the broader philanthropic financial picture. Citing the 2026 Gilded Giving report from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a longtime WGF partner, the article notes that the 144 U.S. private foundations with endowments above $1 billion had a median payout rate of 5.1% in 2024. IPS estimated that had billion-dollar-plus foundations paying below 10% reached that level, an additional $23.4 billion could have gone to charitable purposes that year. WGF's new report, ALL IN: Building Power, Scaling Change, Meeting the Moment, urges funders to examine not only how much they give but who they fund and how their endowments and institutional power are used.
WGF's approach also emphasizes long-term support for movements. Scott Fitzmorris, WGF Board Co-Chair and Henry A. Wallace's great-grandson, said that movements "are built over years through organizing, leadership development, forging relationships and building infrastructure." The foundation's fossil-fuel divestment work is presented as its clearest example: beginning in 2010 it moved its own endowment out of fossil fuels and mining, funded student activists and helped extend the campaign to cities, pension funds and faith institutions. The article notes WGF did not create the movement, but says its early resources helped turn it into a global force. WGF also says its portfolio delivered top-decile returns among foundations over the last full decade, a result Dr. Dorsey said reinforced the principle that "the mission and the money should point in the same direction."
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