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The article should give a little more context about Claude Lambe. Who was he?
Charles Koch himself says "Claude was a close family friend who left his estate under my care." http://www.cgkfoundation.org/creating-a-science-of-liberty/ Creating a Science of Liberty Based on a speech given by Charles Koch at an Institute for Humane Studies Research Colloquium January 11, 1997 "In 1982, the year after Claude Lambe died, WE established the Claude R. Lambe (CRL) Fellowship Program. Claude was a close family friend who left his estate under my care. He had a strong interest in both the free society and young people, so the Fellowship Program seemed a natural."
http://www.counterpunch.org/martens10192010.html "The Koch Empire and Americans for Prosperity A CounterPunch Investigation By PAM MARTENS -- October 19, 2010
Claude Lambe was a real estate developer and insurance broker in Kansas. He invested in a company formed by Fred Koch in 1934, the Buffalo Oil Corporation. Lambe’s wife, Pauline, died in 1976; Lambe died in 1981. According to a Koch Industries publication, Charles Koch was left in charge of Lambe’s estate. Charles Koch and his wife, Elizabeth, serve as Directors on the Foundation’s board. Hopefully, Lambe wanted to fund all of these right wing causes because that’s what his foundation has been doing since his death."
Greetings. As per several WP Policies, we must be careful with out edits. While it is true, the status as charitable is questioned by some, putting too much weight in this is WP:UNDUE. Also, pushing something WP:UNDUE like this hints at WP:NPOV and WP:COATRACK. To sum it up, this:
Some critics have suggested that the Kochs’ approach has subverted the purpose of tax-exempt giving. By law, charitable foundations must conduct exclusively nonpartisan activities that promote the public welfare. A 2004 report by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a watchdog group, described the Kochs’ foundations as being self-serving, concluding, “These foundations give money to nonprofit organizations that do research and advocacy on issues that impact the profit margin of Koch Industries.”
Does not verify this:
Their status as "charitable" is questioned.
DaltonCastle (talk) 03:50, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
I'm unable to find a reliable, neutral, third party source to support the claim inserted yesterday that the KFF are "charitable", other than the self-labeling within several of the organizations' names themselves. The term "charitable" was substituted for the more neutral (WP:NPOV) "nonprofit organization", though I suggest a third option below. The principle reference for the "charitable organizations" claims is in fact research into political activity: Covert Operations The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama, which includes references (which I've directly quoted an inserted into the article) questioning the foundation's "charitable" nature. That is, in fact, the only time "charitable" (or any variant) appears as anything other than the name of one of the foundations in question.
Characterizing the direct message of the New Yorker article as "WP:COATRACK" assumes bad faith.
From the IRS, Foundations:
(Bold emphasis added.)
Further, on public charities vs. private foundations!from!Grantspace?:
Checking for usage on other foundations of various stripes, I find that the following NPV language is used:
"Private foundation" seems to be the defensible, neutral, customary, and legal term.
I'm also curious how "self-described" is construed as WP:POV. Self-described here is a self-evident aspect of the organizations. Dredmorbius (talk) 04:20, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
Koch Industries Implicated in Multi-Year Wikipedia "Whitewashing" Scandal TUE SEP 08, 2015 AT 07:29 PM PDT
This evidence strongly suggests that, over a period of YEARS (at least 2012), individual accounts directed by Koch Industries and/or operating on its behalf have: 1) Systematically removed content containing specific citations that paint the company in a negative light. 2) Responded to negative content with a "playbook" that consists of objecting on the grounds of various arcane Wikipedia rules and/or making broad sweeping objections while steadfastly refusing to engage with or discuss the specific negative content itself. 3) Posted company statements, and other astroturf that links to company-owned websites, both in place of and in addition to organic Wikipedia content.
The evidence presented is strongly suggestive of a pattern of long-term abuse, by multiple users, who have diligently worked to exclude and divert negative information from pages related to the Kochs over a multi-year period. Furthermore, the sophisticated efforts to divert negative information from SERPS and seeming use of a "playbook" to suppress negative content are suggestive of an organized reputation management effort.
...
Users Arthur Rubin, springee, Capitalismojo, and AdventurousSquirrel repeatedly tried to cite arcane Wikipedia rules and make broad statements that the content wasn't relevant. However, when we posted a complete list of specific proposed changes, each with supporting detail, it was impossible for them to continue the ruse.
Dredmorbius (talk) 00:18, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
I undid this deletion of referenced material [1]. There are many scientific publications that show clearly that the Koch family foundations are leading and highly influencial sponsors of manufactured doubt in climate sciences. This is widely known and was now also published in PNAS, a leading scientifc journal, almost as important as Nature and Science. The whole article here is based on media reports, some of them highly dubious, and a PNAS paper produced POV? Not really. Removing such a section by falsely claiming that this is POV is ridiculous. In fact, leaving out such important facts is POV. If you need to know the exact sentence in the paper: "Most importantly for the purposes of this study, the data also include a measure of corporate funding from entities that prior literature on contrarian movements have identified as especially influential (8, 9, 14, 15): ExxonMobil (EM) and the Koch family foundations (KFF)." Andol (talk) 15:19, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
I'm new to editing, and uncomfortable making any edits here without checking with the community. In reading about the Koch foundations, i came across this error: Grants to Dr Willie Soon are attributed to the "Charles Koch Foundation" but are probably from the defunct "Charles G Koch Charitable Foundation." "Grants from the Foundation include $230,000 over 14 years to Dr. Willie Soon, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics who says that most global warming is driven by the sun."[23] - First, the "Charles Koch Foundation" originated in 2011, so it couldn't have made contributions any contributions over most of that time. - The referenced 2015 Guardian article [1]does not support "14 years" and identifies the "Charles G Koch Foundation" as a grantor, without specific timing. The reference is in a paragraph that begins identifying ExxonMobil contributions in 2010. - It is most likely that the support of W. Soon should be addressed under the "Charles G Koch Charitable Foundation" heading. JD2020 (talk) 19:31, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
References
@Comatmebro: can you explain how the category is POV pushing when we cover climate change denial in the body of the article? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:21, 30 April 2022 (UTC)