In its early years, the Quadrivium Foundation had nowhere near the resources you might expect for the philanthropy of one of the country’s most powerful heirs.
The New York-based foundation of Kathryn and James Murdoch, the younger son of billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, began a decade ago with a gift of nearly $10 million in shares of the Murdoch family’s News Corp. Five years later, the endowment still totaled less than $16 million.
But all of that changed in 2019. Disney’s takeover of 21st Century Fox left James, who had served as Fox’s CEO, out of a job. It was also a windfall for the couple, who received a reported $2.1 billion from the acquisition — and transferred $100 million in Disney shares to their foundation on the day the sale went through. With the new bounty, Quadrivium grew its grantmaking five-fold to $25 million that year and added several new grantees.
The plethora of first-time recipients offered new insights into the priorities of the couple, but also new questions. Was it a one-time surge or the first steps of a would-be philanthropic heavyweight? What are the long-term aspirations of a couple who are among the potential heirs to a family fortune Forbes estimates at $19 billion — and whose left-leaning politics contrast with the right-wing legacy of Rupert Murdoch and Fox News?
The operation’s minimal website offers the broad strokes, outlining priorities that include democracy, climate change, science, technology, and ocean health, but not much beyond that. So I’ve taken a closer look at the foundation’s recent tax filings, including its newly available 2020 forms, as well as recent grant announcements and press coverage, to see what the public record tells us. (The foundation did not respond to requests for an interview.)
Evidence suggests that the $100 million Disney infusion opened a new phase for Quadrivium. Yes, the couple doubled down on favored recipients, with established groups like the Environmental Defense Fund and the Anti-Defamation League seeing multimillion-dollar increases in their awards. But the Murdochs also chose many new grantees, mostly environmental and democracy groups, for million-dollar-plus, first-time grants. We won’t know if it’s a lasting surge until more recent tax filings become public — or the operation gets more transparent — but it could preview what’s ahead.
In the meantime, here's what we know about their philanthropy — and how it has evolved in recent years.
What does Quadrivium support?
A foundation’s stated priorities and actual grantmaking don’t always line up neatly. But in Quadrivium’s case, major grants almost entirely support its five declared and interrelated interests noted above. They also illustrate some of the ways the younger Murdoch heir has strayed from the family’s role as a purveyor of right-wing messaging via Fox News. (The Murdochs still control the network and other media assets that were spun off following the Disney acquisition.)
For starters, climate change and democracy causes dominate the foundation’s list of big gifts. As noted earlier, the Environmental Defense Fund has received some of the foundation’s largest checks, with nonpartisan voting group Democracy Works also receiving multimillion-dollar support. The environment writ large has been a long-time priority of the couple. Fox News, by contrast, has long been a home for climate deniers and served as a megaphone that metastasized Trump’s big lie.
The couple’s public relationship with the Anti-Defamation League began with a $1 million donation in 2017 following the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. In an email addressed to “friends” that soon became national news, James Murdoch announced the donation while condemning both the rally and then-President Donald Trump’s infamous statement that there were “good people on both sides” of the clash. The donation came at a time when many Fox News personalities were defending Trump’s statement and Rupert Murdoch was acting as an informal adviser to the former president.
The foundation has also been a public supporter of journalism. That funding, too, could be read as an extension of other family schisms. James resigned from the board of News Corp (the Murdoch-controlled company that owns the Wall Street Journal and other media assets) in 2020, citing disagreements over “certain editorial content” and has publicly condemned, along with Kathryn, the company’s climate change denialism.
Some of the couple’s journalism funding is made with an explicit climate lens, such as regular six- and seven-figure gifts to Climate Central. It was also one of several foundations that backed a major expansion of the Associated Press’ climate coverage that created a standalone desk and roughly 20 dedicated reporters. Other commitments are more general. For instance, Quadrivium committed $5 million to the American Journalism Project last September.
The foundation’s democracy funding, meanwhile, took on a more defensive tenor during the Trump administration. In 2019, to take one example, it funded a two-year Center for a New American Security initiative called Countering High-Tech Illiberalism, which sought to confront how technology is used against liberal democracy. It has also funded a conservative-led nonprofit, Defending Democracy Together, that publishes The Bulwark, a center-right news site founded in 2018 in opposition to Trump.
Outside grantmaking, there’s limited detail on whether Quadrivium tries to leverage its investments for change. A rare exception came last year when the foundation contributed to a $673-million-plus climate finance fund started by the investment giant BlackRock to mobilize capital for projects in Asia, Latin America and Africa. The Grantham Philanthropic Trust, a stalwart environmental funder, was another participant.
How big is this operation?
Quadrivium may be ramping up its giving, but its team still appears to be quite lean. The foundation listed no employees in its 2020 tax filings and just two show up on LinkedIn, one of whom is president and trustee Kathryn Murdoch.
The other is Brooke Russell, the foundation’s director of research and strategy. Her resume includes stints at McKinsey, The Economist, and the Clinton Foundation, where Kathryn also once worked. It’s apparently not a full-time gig. Russell is also deputy director of communications and head of the New York Office at C40 Cities, a global alliance of municipalities taking climate action, backed by Bloomberg Philanthropies and others.
Kathryn, for her part, often serves as a board member for the foundation’s grantees. For example, she’s a trustee for the Environmental Defense Fund, to which the couple has given more than $15 million since 2015. She also previously served on the board of Rockefeller University, a longtime grantee that supports the Quadrivium Award for Innovative Research in Epigenetics. Quadrivium recently made its first grants to both UniteAmerica and Climate Leadership Council, and Kathryn serves on both boards.
James Murdoch’s other foundation
Quadrivium is not the only philanthropy James Murdoch is involved with. He’s also a listed trustee for the West Palm Beach, Florida-based Bridge of Allen Foundation. Headquartered in a nondescript office building next to a Publix Supermarket and a bar with a mechanical bull, it is much smaller and lower-profile operation than Quadrivium.
James is co-trustee along with his mother, Anna Mann, the journalist and novelist who was married to Rupert Murdoch for more than three decades. The inspiration for the foundation’s name may be personal. Just north of Glasgow, Scotland, where Anna Mann was reportedly raised, there is a town called “Bridge of Allan” — albeit spelled with an “a” not an “e.”
With less than $15 million in assets as of 2019, most gifts are around $10,000 or less. Recipients include a variety of well-known charities, such as Doctors Without Borders, the Salvation Army and the Wounded Warriors Project. One exception is a West Palm Beach housing and services provider The Lord’s Place, which has received multiple $1 million grants.
Kathryn Murdoch does not appear to be affiliated with any other foundations.
What should we expect from the Murdochs?
In 2014, the year after Quadrivium formally launched, we awarded James an IPPY as “Most Compensatory Son of Stingy Media Mogul.” (We’d previously bestowed the second half of that honorific on his now-91-year-old father.) And it remains true that the Murdochs are following some good philanthropic practices. They have long spent well over the 5% payout minimum and appear to make mostly multiyear, unrestricted grants, two things we often promote here at IP.
So in comparison to the legendarily tight-fisted Rupert Murdoch, the couple’s philanthropy is notable. My colleague once wrote that the “apple fell far from the tree.” That being said, by the measure of their reportedly multibillion-dollar fortune, their giving is rather modest. At least so far.
The Murdochs’ gift of Disney stock a few years ago was a first step toward big-time philanthropy. A follow-up year of big-time giving was another. Time will tell if those are the first of many for a couple whose last name has long attracted more attention to their philanthropy than its scale actually warrants.
James is now 49, Kathryn is in her early 50s, and their three children are reportedly in their teens. In short, the couple is getting closer to those years in which philanthropy often becomes a greater priority. Moreover, James is recently liberated from family strictures, having severed his ties with both Fox and News Corp. With heat waves breaking records and illiberal rulers gaining ground around the globe, each day’s headlines offer the couple plenty of reasons for new investments in their philanthropic passions.
Much of the Murdochs’ grantmaking to date seems designed to strike an ideological line between the couple and some of the loathsome legacies of News Corp. To date, Quadrivium’s work is still a footnote to that larger story. It’s unlikely that any philanthropy could make up for the scope of those impacts. But it’d be great to see the younger Murdochs give it a try.