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.

From the archives, Congressional questions about politicized philanthropy almost half a century ago

As excerpts of a Watergate hearing show, concerns about the political activity of tax-incentivized charity are not new—having arisen soon after the 1969 Tax Reform Act that still provides the legal structure of nonprofitdom.

Michael E. Hartmann / 3 min read
Revisiting underappreciated lessons from philanthropic support of the Federalist Society

Given recent attention to the Federalist Society, policy-oriented donors can learn some underappreciated lessons from the Society’s early philanthropic support.

Michael E. Hartmann / 3 min read
charity-industrial
Thomas Piketty proposes specific tax scale for nonprofit endowments

Don’t miss influential author, in new book, floating idea “in order to avoid an excessive concentration of power within a small number of entities and to enable less wealthy entities to develop.”

Michael E. Hartmann / 2 min read
A conversation with Terry Considine (Part 2 of 2)

The former Bradley Foundation chairman talks to Daniel P. Schmidt and Michael E. Hartmann about short- and long-term grantmaking strategies, the politicization of philanthropy and donor freedom, the imbalance between left and right among major givers, and what conservatives should try doing about it.

Daniel P. Schmidt & Michael E. Hartmann / 2 min read
A conversation with Terry Considine (Part 1 of 2)

The former Bradley Foundation chairman talks to Daniel P. Schmidt and Michael E. Hartmann about his decades’ worth of experience in real-estate investing, politics, and philanthropy.

Daniel P. Schmidt & Michael E. Hartmann / 2 min read
In webinar, Center for Effective Philanthropy and Council on Foundations address declining trust in nonprofits and philanthropy

And look at how to rebuild it.

Michael E. Hartmann / 2 min read
Differences, and the risk of similarities, between government and private grantmaking

Claire Dunning’s impressive new history on government support of nonprofits in Boston offers helpful insights for private philanthropy.

Michael E. Hartmann / 4 min read
rule of law
Inside Philanthropy survey finds support for reform of philanthropy’s legal structure

Editor David Callahan notes that philanthropic and nonprofit trade groups might “be out of touch with their own communities.”

Michael E. Hartmann / 2 min read
Opposition “anti-Marxist liberals” in Yoram Hazony’s Conservatism

And in philanthropy?

Michael E. Hartmann / 5 min read
“Independent” sector?

An ActBlue clue.

Michael E. Hartmann / 2 min read

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