The Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation is a private philanthropic foundation established in 1991 with wealth from the Gann family's jewelry business. The Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation donates to an array of organizations that support and normalize Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland. As of the end of 2020, the Gann family was holding assets worth $38,584,076 within their foundation.
Joseph Gann established a watch repair shop in Boston in 1933. Gann's watch shop grew overtime before transforming into a wholesale jewelry business -- what is now Joseph Gann Jewelers LLC. Joseph Gann passed Joseph Gann Jewelers down to his son, Herbert Gann, in 1987. The family's jewelry business is currently co-owned by Herbert's children, Matthew and Josh, although Herbert and his wife Rita remain involved. Joseph Gann has two other children, Beverly Bavly (married to Donald Bavly) and Shirley Saunders. Joseph and Rae Gann were the only trustees listed on the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation's tax filings until their deaths in 2003 and 2004. Today, Shirley, Beverly, and Herbert are the trustees listed on the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation's tax filings, however, it is probable that numerous family members are involved in the foundation's operations as well. The Foundation's mailing address is a Miami, FL condo owned by Beverly.
The Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation donates to an array of organizations that support and normalize Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland. From FY01-FY20, the Gann Charitable Foundation donated the following amounts to the below-listed organizations and institutions*:
[*Note: Itemized donations are not included in the publicly available portion of the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation's tax filings from FY15, FY17, and FY18. Accordingly, the above figures do not include donations the Foundation made to these organizations from those three fiscal years.]
In addition to these direct donations, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation donates to pro-Israel donor-advised funds (DAFs) and other similarly-functioning intermediaries. Donor-advised funds function as recipients of large sums of money from wealthy individuals, money which DAFs then channel to those wealthy donors' desired recipients as donations from the donor-advised fund, without the necessity of public transparency that the donation came from the specific wealthy donor. In this way, donor-advised funds allow wealthy individuals to financially support organizations without the public necessarily knowing that they are doing so, or knowing the extent to which they are doing so. From FY01-FY20, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation donated the following amounts to donor-advised funds and other similarly-functioning intermediary organizations*:
[*Note: Itemized donations are not included in the publicly available portion of the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation's tax filings from FY15, FY17, and FY18. Accordingly, the figures do not include donations the Foundation made to these DAFs from those three fiscal years.]
In addition to their support for Zionist organizations, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation made intermittent donations from FY01-FY20 to organizations that support Boston area police forces. These include*:
[*Note: Itemized donations are not included in the publicly available portion of the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation's tax filings from FY15, FY17, and FY18. Accordingly, the figures do not include donations the Foundation made to these organizations during those three fiscal years.]
The Gann Charitable Foundation also donates to Boston Area universities and medical institutions, several of which are included on our map for their support for Zionism and/or other forms of racism. From FY01-FY20, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation donated the following amounts to each of the below-listed institutions:
[*Note: Itemized donations are not included in the publicly available portion of the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation's tax filings from FY15, FY17, and FY18. Accordingly, the figures do not include donations the Foundation made to these organizations during those three fiscal years.]
Assets held within a private foundation, as well as gains on those assets, face considerably less tax liability than assets held as personal wealth. Moreover, private foundations enable wealthy individuals to use tax write-offs to reduce the taxes they have to pay on all of their assets, including assets held outside of their foundations as personal wealth. Such tax evasion is perfectly legal, on the condition that a foundation's disbursements (donations + expenses) in a given fiscal year equal at least 5% of the fair market value of that foundation's total assets from the end of the previous fiscal year.
The Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation's tax filings from the past two decades (FY2001-FY2020) show annual disbursements of assets that only marginally exceed (and in some cases fall short of) this federally mandated 5% minimum. In FY20, for example, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation disbursed $2,258,100 in donations and expenses, 4.5% of the $49,816,184 fair market value of the Foundation's assets at the end of FY19. Moreover, because the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation's assets are invested in corporate stocks, assets within the Foundation have in recent years yielded annual gains close to the amount of money the foundation has disbursed in donations and expenses. In FY19, for example, assets with the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation produced revenues from interest, and dividends, along with gains from asset sales totaling $1,755,014, just shy of the $2,331,932 that the Foundation disbursed in donations and expenses that year. As noted above, such gains on assets held within a private foundation face considerably less tax liability than gains on assets held as personal wealth.
Rather than benevolent ventures through which wealthy individuals give away their money for the public good, private foundations should be understood as strategic financial maneuvers through which the wealthy reduce the taxes they have to pay into public budgets, in exchange for committing to donate a portion of the (under-taxed) wealth held within their foundations to their preferred charitable causes. The Gann family uses the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation as a tax-free stock portfolio for $38.5 million of their familial wealth, while funneling derivative income from these stocks into organizations and institutions which support Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland.
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Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $3,866,095 to Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP).
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $4,200 to MIT.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $4,250 to Berklee College of Music.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $25,000 to UMass Amherst Hillel and Hillel House at UMass Amherst.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $300 to the Jewish Journal.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $17,750 to The David Project.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $18,060 to the Synagogue Council of Massachusetts.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $300 to the New Israel Fund.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $2,700 to New England Yachad.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $10,200 to the Jewish National Fund.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $31,505 to the Massachusetts General Hospital Fund.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $33,500 to the Jewish Arts Collaborative.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $62,420 to Hadassah.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $155,790 to Friends of the IDF and New England Friends of the IDF.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $70,960 to the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA).
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $14,950 to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $800 to the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Committee of New England.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $400 to American Friends of LIBI.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $41,060 to Brandeis University and has donated $3,000 to Hillel at Brandeis.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $28,150 to Boston University and has donated at least $500 to Hillel House at Boston University.
From 2003 to the present, the Joseph and Rae Gann Foundation has donated over $4,779,000 to Gann Academy.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $798.67 to the Hillel Council of New England.
Based on available tax filings, the Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation has donated at least $1,300 to Tufts Medical Center.