A New Koch in Town: Four Things to Note About the Philanthropy of America's Richest Woman
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Photo: David Koch Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Here at IP, we’ve long been following how women are wielding increasing power in the sector. From Melinda Gates to Marilyn Simons, Laura Arnold, Priscilla Chan, and many others besides, more women are playing leading roles in philanthropy.
Since we put out that list of philanthropy’s 15 most powerful women back in 2014, other women have emerged or are emerging as philanthropic power players, including MacKenzie Scott and Nicole Shanahan. We’ve also long tracked the giving of Alice Walton, who started her own foundation in 2017 to focus on increasing access to the arts, improving education outcomes, and other issues.
Then there’s Julia Koch, 60, widow of late billionaire businessman David Koch, who passed away in 2019. Julia Koch and her three children inherited a 42% stake in Koch Industries from David. And today, she is the richest woman in America — shooting past Alice Walton — with a net worth of $57 billion as of this writing.
An Iowa native, Koch moved to New York City in the 1980s and worked in fashion. In the early 1990s, she met David Koch on a blind date, though, according to her, the initial date did not go well. But the two later reconnected and married in 1996. The couple were active philanthropists, including through the David H. Koch Foundation, launched in 1982.
Historically, Koch philanthropy has backed conventional causes in the arts and health. But the Kochs’ giving has also brought with it a hefty degree of controversy. While he was alive, David Koch and his older brother Charles were well-known (and infamous, for many) as some of the nation’s deepest-pocketed backers of libertarian and right-wing causes. Such was their reputation that the phrase “Koch brothers” is still bandied about, even though David passed away three years ago.
Charles Koch is particularly infamous, in some quarters at least, for his ideologically freighted higher ed giving. The Charles Koch Foundation gave some $100 million to higher education causes in the fiscal year 2019 alone. Critical voices like UnKoch My Campus have long argued that this grantmaking has been a classic example of outsized donor influence — shaping university hiring decisions, and introducing partisan curricula and research.
But now that Julia Koch serves as president of the David H. Koch Foundation, what direction will this particular foundation take? And what should we expect from the philanthropy of America’s richest woman in the coming decades? Here are a few things to look out for.
Expect continued health giving
In 2017, Julia and David Koch gave a $10 million gift to establish a new unit at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford for clinical research. The unit operates within the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research at Stanford University, which is home to groundbreaking allergy and asthma clinical trials. And in 2012, the couple made a $10 million pledge to the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, creating the David H. and Julia Koch Research Program in Food Allergy Therapeutics.
The motivations here are personal. Koch’s son, David Jr., has severe nut and shellfish allergies, and is required to carry an epi-pen. In addition to food allergy work, expect cancer research to loom large, as well, going forward. The late David Koch survived a plane crash in the early 1990s, only to discover he had prostate cancer not long after.
Julia Koch supports NYU Langone’s Hip Center, home to the Julia Koch Associate Professor of Orthopedic Surgery. Koch herself was treated by a doctor at the facility. She also gave a $1.4 million gift to NYU to establish the Julia Koch Endowed Scholarship for medical students.
Arts giving will likely remain a priority
The David H. Koch Foundation has long supported a number of arts and cultural institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution (though with some controversy), the American Museum of Natural History, the Met, the American Ballet Theatre, and the New York City Opera.
In the aughts, David Koch made a $100 million naming gift to the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. Julia Koch also has a passion for the arts, particularly the performing arts. She once served on the board of directors for the School of American Ballet, where she annually chaired the Nutcracker Family Benefit and Winter Ball.
Keep an eye on the next generation
Koch’s three children, David Koch Jr., Mary Julia Koch and John Mark Koch, should be watched carefully. Mary Julia, currently a Harvard student, was a volunteer at LSA Family Health Service during high school. The foundation supports LSA, which helps vulnerable families in East Harlem and beyond.
It’s too early to tell at this point, but we’ll be waiting to see whether the next generation of Kochs are at all inclined to carry on some of the more controversial aspects of the family’s giving. Alongside Charles Koch’s children, the younger generation on Julia’s side may eventually become some of the most well-resourced heirs in the country.
More ideological giving to come?
The past several years have seen the wider Koch clan pull back from some of the more overt ideological stances they were known for when both brothers were alive. On Charles Koch’s side, Stand Together, an umbrella organization for several funding vehicles associated with the mega-billionaire, has taken pains to embrace more centrist, unity-oriented messaging lately.
Likewise, Julia Koch hasn’t been very keen to deploy her billions toward obviously conservative or libertarian causes since David’s passing, instead sticking to the arts, health and the like. That said, she does lean to the right in her political giving. She’s no political mega-donor (at least not yet), but she has donated to key Republican political figures of 2022, including Ron DeSantis and Mehmet Oz.
While a few political donations may mean little when it comes to how Julia Koch will eventually disburse her gargantuan fortune, these hints do make it unlikely we’ll see, for example, some kind of radical ideological departure from the longtime stances of her late husband and her brother-in-law. In fact, it’s always possible that Julia’s political donations are the tip of a much deeper iceberg, including right-leaning policy giving conducted through opaque channels like DAFs.
It’s also worth noting that despite her astronomical net worth on paper, Julia Koch’s actual giving capacity may be significantly smaller. Rare is the billionaire fortune that’s entirely liquid, and in the Kochs’ case, billions upon billions are most likely locked up in stock in the family’s privately owned company and in other non-cash assets that can’t be moved to charity on the fly.
In theory, though, Julia does have the same or similar giving capacity as Charles, so we shouldn’t assume she can’t or won’t go a lot bigger in the coming years.
