Happy new year!
The news sucks, so this weekend I tried to avoid doomscrolling and instead pored over a new batch of tax filings from the Holdfast Collective.
What’s the Holdfast Collective?
If you read DIRTBAG BILLIONAIRE, my book on Patagonia and its founder Yvon Chouinard, you know it’s the philanthropic entity he set up to distribute his company’s profits and relieve himself of the burden of being a billionaire.
(If you didn’t know that, grab a copy!)
I offer a detailed account of how the Holdfast Collective came to be and how it works in the book.
But the upshot is that Holdfast is a series of 501(c)4 organizations that receive the annual profits from Patagonia that aren’t reinvested in the company, and distributes those monies to environmental nonprofits, political groups and conservationists.
The new filings show how much is coming in, and where Holdfast (which is run by one guy named Greg) is sending all that cash. (Details on Leo below.)
As a reminder, here’s how you can help:
Buy a copy or a dozen at Amazon, Bookshop, Porchlight (bulk discounts), or Barnes & Noble.
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The Holdfast Collective is really five distinct 501(c)4 organizations — Holdfast Trust, Chalten Trust, The Wilder Trust, Tailwind Trust and Sojourner Trust. Holdfast Trust is the big dog, receiving the lion’s share of Patagonia’s profits and doing most of the giving.
The new filings show that Patagonia sent $63,307,331 to the Holdfast Trust in 2024, and another $16.5 million or so to the other four trusts. That’s nearly $80 million in annual charitable contributions, a remarkable sum for any company, especially a relatively small clothing brand from Southern California.
(With some back of the envelope math, the sum also suggests that Patagonia is still doing a bit over $1 billion in annual sales. Margins have historically hovered around 10 percent, meaning there would be about $100 in profits. Figure that 20 percent of that is reinvested in the company or kept in reserves, and the $80 million in charitable contributions to Holdfast tracks.)
So where did all that money go?
In total, the trusts gave away roughly $40.7 million in 2024. Here are some of the highlights:
About half that total, or $20 million, went to the Marin Community Foundation, a sort of philanthropic middleman that administers charitable accounts. The filings don’t show where the money went from here.
The Nature Conservancy got $7.2 million. A big chunk of that went to protect a nearly 8,000-acre tract of land in Alabama’s Mobile-Tensaw Delta.
Another $7.5 million or so went to Save Our Home Planet Action Inc., a Patagonia-linked entity that has funned money to Democratic political action committees. (Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the Federal Election Committee in 2024 alleging it was part of a “straw donor” scheme.)
Leonardo DiCaprio! $3.25 million of Patagonia’s profits went to Re:wild, a group founded by the Titanic heartthrob and a group of conservation scientists that works on restoring nature.
There were also a handful of contributions to local political races in California and local Democratic groups.
Patagonia’s Work in Progress Report, which I highlighted last year, has some additional details about Holdfast’s giving. Since 2022, according to the report, Holdfast has:
Committed a total of $142 million to activism and conservation.
Protected 645,385 acres of land.
Made 2,055 grants.
The report, which is worth a read for students of the company, highlights some additional projects as well, including protecting the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia, Bristol Bay in Alaska, and the Mulga Lands bioregion of New South Wales, Australia.
That’s an overview of Holdfast in 2024. I covered the group’s first year of operations in The New York Times just over a year ago, and wrote more about Holdfast, including some other major donations, in an excerpt of the book for TIME last year.
A couple final notes for any sleuths who want to poke around the filings:
The trusts also disclose substantial holdings in “investments - other securities.” In the case of the Holdfast Trust, that figure is a whopping $1,381,084,403. Those aren’t liquid assets that can be sold or donated, however. That is the value of the nonvoting Patagonia shares that the trusts hold in perpetuity, part of the complex structure.
The $40.7 million in grants Holdfast made in 2024 is much less than the $80 million it took in. That surprised me at first, because the Patagonia team has always said that Holdfast would be spending down its assets rapidly and not building up an endowment. But Holdfast took in closer to $50 million in 2023, which is what it would have used for last year’s grants. Given the bigger haul last year, expect to see more grant-making in 2025 when the next batch of filings are released.
So long for now. Please buy the book and leave a review.
Thanks for your support.
David
Thank you for sharing this reporting. Makes me feel like not everyone in the world is rotten.