Yes, Another Headline Asking "Who Is Josh Harris?"

On April 6, the Lily School of Philanthropy published the results of a study that sought to “examine the general attitudes and perceptions of philanthropy and the nonprofit sector.”

The report’s headline read, “Americans are generally positive about charitable giving and nonprofits but know little about philanthropy, have concerns about transparency, study finds.”

That same morning, at 11:33AM to be precise, I got an email from The Chronicle of Philanthropy bearing the headline, “Americans Know Little About Charities — and Very Few Think Nonprofits Can Solve Problems, Poll Finds.

Note the not so subtle shifts in terms and their tenor:

“Americans are generally positive about charitable giving and nonprofits but know little about philanthropy Charities, have concerns about transparency, study and Very Few Think Nonprofits Can Solve Problems, Poll finds.”

One can’t blame The Chronicle for spicing it up a bit. Americans being “generally positive” about anything just isn’t clickbait. “Concerns about transparency” also doesn’t move my mouse. And, honestly, I’m not even concerned that most Americans don’t “think nonprofits can solve problems.” If anything that’s kind of a relief. It means we at least agree that we can’t nonprofit our way out of our shit.

The part about Americans not knowing about charities, though—that caught my attention.

The role of philanthropy in society is something that I think and have written about on occasion. The social justice scene that I came up in was shrouded in the veneer of good intentions but was in fact guided by the invisible hand and inexhaustible resources of wealthy individuals and families who also had ideas about how the world should operate, ideas they sought to exercise through scalable initiatives. This is very much the American way. Money buys power to shape. Some do so through force. Some through faith. Some through fandom. Others use the soft power of philanthropy.

In my experience, the irony of the Chronicle headline is that open secrecy is the appeal of philanthropy.¹ The sector’s allure is that it is both there and not there, transparent and opaque. Hiding in plain sight. It’s little coincidence or wonder that the Lily report found that Americans consider giving by high-net-worth individuals to be the least transparent among all forms of giving.

When I read recently that OpenAI began as a nonprofit and was seeded with $30 million back in 2017 from Open Philanthropy, a private entity fueled by a Facebook founder’s largesse, it all made so much sense. Only philanthropy fueled by big tech dollars could have bankrolled the early stages of a revolution that is being hailed the biggest thing since fire and no one even notice, or notice enough to care.

I forgot all about the Lily report, until I came across a stream of headlines last week asking the same question: “Who is Josh Harris?” (You yourself may even be asking that question.) The short answer is that Harris is on the verge of being the billionaire who buys the NFL’s beleaguered Washington Commanders from another billionaire (who holds the undisputed title for most despised team owner in all of professional sports) for more money than any North American sports team in history.²

The Athletic, Washington Post and Philadelphia Inquirer all ran their version of the “Who Is Josh Harris” headline, and each of them said the pretty much the same thing.

None of them—not one—mentioned his record on philanthropy, which is available, for free, to anyone with even a passing interest. Three national news outlets and three stories purporting to tell us who a man is, yet not one of them had a single thing to tell readers about how such a man who is worth reportedly $5.8 billion approaches giving. How is that? Why is that? What does it say about our values?³

In kicking out Donald Sterling and Sarver, the NBA has been willing to show that owning a professional team is a privilege not a right.⁴ There is a character component that factors into the equation.⁵

I know it’s not a popular opinion, but pro sports teams are, in my view, as much a public benefit as they are a private club. Just look at Seattle. The wound from the loss of the Sonics will never quite heal. Here, in DC, where I live, as fans wait for the deal to be finalized, a combination of emotions appears to be at play. On one hand, there is resignation. Growing up, pro football was king. Now, it’s just … there, like the Wizards. Even when the team had a bit of winning streak this season, it never seemed to generate excitement. Alternatively, the desperate-for-a-new-day crowd are so keen to send Snyder packing that they don’t seem to mind that a man who ran their beloved team into the ground stands to realize a $5.2 billion gain for the nearly three decades he held the DMV hostage.

Odd as it is to say, I actually do know Josh Harris. I did, I should say. It was a brief period—two years or so—and it was exclusively through his charitable work with what was then The Harris Family Charitable Foundation and is now the more impressively titled, Harris Philanthropies. After seeding the foundation with $10 million in 2013, Harris spent the next couple of years figuring out how and where to make his wealth have impact. In that time, his (Harris was then listed as the sole officer) biggest spend was on the big-name nonprofit consulting outfit, the Bridgespan group. According to the foundation’s 2014 filing, Harris dropped roughly $2.3 million with the firm.⁶ I can't verify this but my best guess is that Bridgespan charged Harris a mint to tell him where and how to position himself in the charitable marketplace. Starting in 2015, the foundation began making sizable gifts to sports-based youth programs. That's where we—rather the nonprofit where I once worked and served on the leadership team—came in.

From what I recall, some time in 2016 someone in the organization got a phone call or an email from Harris’ team. At the time Harris and his partner David Blitzer were just establishing Harris-Blitzer Sports and Entertainment to oversee a growing sports empire that included the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers and New Jersey Devils. As part of his charitable commitments to the cities in which his teams played—Newark, Philadelphia and nearby Camden where he had built a practice facility for the Sixers—Harris was actively looking for organizations and causes to support his enthusiasm for sports-based youth development. It so happened that we had a presence in Newark and Philly and were looking to expand to Camden.

A site visit was scheduled, followed by lots of emails and phone calls with his staff. Those exchanges snowballed into the first of several pitch meetings at his midtown office, each ultimately requiring its own 80 slide Power Point deck and intensely rehearsed script. From what I can recall, Harris’ staff meticulously reviewed drafts of our presentations and made comments up to the 11th hour. And even on the day of planned meetings, after people had traveled in from different time zones, there was always the chance of a last-minute call from his office saying, unfortunately, Josh needed to reschedule. In those moments, all we could do was grin and say, ridiculously, “No problem!” because, really, what were you going to do? Complain that we had spent untold hours preparing? Demand that he compensate us for the lost time? No, if there is one thing you learn as a nonprofit trying to reel in a finance whale it’s to just hold on. Simply finding one who isn’t already tethered to a dozen causes and is even vaguely interested in what you are doing is an accomplishment. Running their gauntlet of handlers and gatekeepers, not to mention making it through the competition is the equivalent to being selected in the first round of the charity draft. Once you’re in the boardroom, the goal is simple: land the plane.

What I remember of those board room meetings is that Harris approached philanthropy like a shrewd investor. He always listened more than he talked. Let his people ask the weedy questions. How did we plan to make the most impact? What were our revenue projections for the next three years? Who else was doing what we were in the field? What made us different? What other “investors” were at the table? Every once in a while, Harris would drop in a thought or a question, at which point whatever conversation was taking place abruptly ended.

Despite his obscene wealth, the world of high-stakes philanthropy still seemed like newer terrain for Harris. Consequently, he took his time making decisions. After each meeting, we grew to expect rounds of document requests and technical questions about our financial models from his team. Weeks routinely turned into months. The entire ordeal felt mysterious and unsettling. I remember everyone being on edge. Then one day we got the call. Harris was in.

Over the span of one month in the fall of 2017, I helped organize and lead a three-stop road show at three public schools—one in Newark, one in Camden and on in Philadelphia—to announce our partnership. Harris showed up to each event by way of private helicopter, shook hands with public officials, took pictures with children, spoke to the press and made a few brief remarks—public speaking is not his thing—before being on his way. He was always polite and patient. He also never quite seemed comfortable in the role of big shot. Something about his mannerisms gave me the impression that he was sincerely uneasy with the pomp and circumstance that seemed to await him wherever he appeared. He didn't enter meetings or events demanding the world stop; it just did because he was the one paying everyone's bills.

Josh Harris is actually not even the wealthiest ot the most generous individual whose philanthropy I’ve had the opportunity to observe up close. In fact, his giving, under $2 million according to the most recent and available documents, is fairly modest relative to his wealth. By way of comparison, Robert Smith, a private equity titan of similar net worth, seeded his Fund II Foundation with nearly $200 million back in 2014 and has since made dozens upon dozens of transformational, multimillion dollar gifts to advance education and social justice.⁷ What I can say with some measure of confidence derived from the interactions we had some six years ago now is that Harris is who you want to own your sports team. He's good ridiculously successful at making entities profitable. He flies under the radar. And he doesn't just love sports for the cool factor; his philanthropy demonstrates that he's an ardent believer in the power of sports to change lives.

What then does that mean for the future of the Commanders? As a business, it likely means no more scandalous headlines. As a football team, it can’t get much worse than it has been. And as charitable entity, let’s just say that if I was a youth development program in the DMV that’s even vaguely associated with sports, I’d start getting my 80-slide pitch deck together.

1. Before the IRS started publishing nonprofit 990s in 203, there was really no simple way for the average person to monitor or evaluate the financial innerworkings of the foundation world. Thanks to ProPublica, those 990s are all housed one easy to use and regularly updated and 100% free website.

2. There isn’t any team that has fallen further faster in the last two decades, and even the most casual football fan blames 99.9% of it on the guy who has owned the team the past quarter century. Snyder fought the name change well past its sell by date. He was called to testify before Congress after a report (that the team never released to the public) concluded he had overseen and was directly implicated in a toxic work culture. In December, ABC reported that the Commanders charity had engaged in multiple questionable activities. Two months ago, NFL players ranked the Commanders dead last among NFL teams to play for. Now he, like, Robert Sarver the disgraced former owner of the Phoenix Suns, is set to walk away with an enormous gain on his investment.

3. Don’t answer that, please.

4. To be sure, reaping the financial rewards continues to be.

5. I am not suggesting that “character” outweighs cash because I don’t think that. At all.

6. Also according to financial records, no single charitable organization has received even half that amount.

7. Full disclosure, I consulted for the foundation for two years. I am also aware of the legal troubles Smith faced with the IRS a couple of years back. Despite all of the sullying of his star, the 990s don’t lie. The man has given incredible sums at an incredible rate.