Michael E. Hartmann

The Giving Review co-editor Michael E. Hartmann is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Strategic Giving at the Capital Research Center (CRC) in Washington, D.C. 

For almost 20 years, Hartmann served in various roles on the program staff of The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee, including as its Director of Research. Before joining Bradley, he was Director of Research at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. He has been a consultant to other foundations and education-reform organizations, as well.

Hartmann is a past Visiting Fellow of the Philanthropy Roundtable in Washington, D.C., for which he researched and wrote Helping People to Help Themselves: A Guide for Donors. He is co-author of CRC’s The Flow of Funding to Conservative and Liberal Political Campaigns, Independent Groups, and Traditional Public Policy Organizations Before and After Citizens United, hailed as “an unprecedented study” by RealClearPolicy.

A graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School, Hartmann has published law-review articles on the constitutionality of school vouchers and aspects of welfare reform, as well as on the First Amendment and intellectual-property rights.

He has written for National Affairs, City Journal, Law & Liberty, National Review Online, The American Conservative, RealClearPolitics, RealClearPolicy, RealClearBooks, RealClearReligion, the Washington Examiner, Philanthropy, Philanthropy Daily, and HistPhil.

Reach Michael at mhartmann@givingreview.com.


Revisiting “The Charitable Deduction in American Political Thought”

Learning again from a still-relevant event a decade ago at the Hudson Institute’s Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal.

A conversation with Loyola Law School’s Ellen P. Aprill (Part 2 of 2)

The nationally prominent legal expert in the taxation of nonprofits talks to Michael E. Hartmann about the taxation of higher-education endowments, comparing and contrasting the rationale for it to that for taxing private-foundation endowments, and explores some tax ramifications of other, newly emerging forms of giving.


A conversation with Loyola Law School’s Ellen P. Aprill (Part 1 of 2)

The nationally prominent legal expert in the taxation of nonprofits talks to Michael E. Hartmann about her career, the different revenue-raising and regulatory roles of the IRS, the non-revenue-related role of state attorneys general, the tax treatment of private-foundation endowments, and the challenges of following complicated IRS rules for small foundations.

A conversation with symposium contributor Julius Krein

The editor, author, and commentator talks to Michael E. Hartmann about his article in the “Conservatism and the Future of Tax-Incentivized Big Philanthropy” symposium.


A conversation with symposium contributor Joel Kotkin

The author and commentator talks to Michael E. Hartmann about his article in the “Conservatism and the Future of Tax-Incentivized Big Philanthropy” symposium.

A conversation with symposium contributor Joanne Florino

The Philanthropy Roundtable’s Adam Meyerson Distinguished Fellow in Philanthropic Excellence talks to Michael E. Hartmann about her article and some of the others in the “Conservatism and the Future of Tax-Incentivized Big Philanthropy” symposium.


Tax-law professors recommend GAO investigation of charities’ involvement in politics

“Such an examination by a respected Congressional agency could reassure both critics and defenders of the IRS generally and the Exempt Organizations division in particular,” according to Ellen P. Aprill and Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer.

America and the Art of the Possible, and philanthropy

Part of post-frontier America’s failed “managerial elite.”


Revisiting contemporary philanthropy as part of a First Estate “clerisy”

Newly out in paperback, Joel Kotkin’s book on the coming “neo-feudalism”—comparing current class conditions to those of the Middle Ages—correctly characterizes the current status and a current role of foundations.

Philanthropy and The Myth of Left and Right

Applying an analytical framework in another, related context.