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https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/sea-change-foundation/

The Sea Change Foundation is a major left-of-center foundation whose grantmaking focuses on supporting environmentalist think tanks and advocacy groups, most notably the Energy Foundation, an environmentalist pass-through funder, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an advocacy nonprofit.

Sea Change was founded in 2006 by Nathaniel Simons, the billionaire son of Renaissance Technologies co-founder and liberal mega-donor James Simons. [1] The foundation, based in San Francisco, California, was created as a 501(c)(3) exempt private foundation. [2] The foundation’s mission is to address “serious threats posed by global climate change.” [3]

Between its creation in 2006 and 2018, Sea Change has paid out $480 million in grants to other nonprofits. [4]. . .

The Sea Change Foundation is funded by Nathaniel “Nat” Simons, co-founder of Prelude Ventures, a “clean technology” investment fund. [5] Funding from the foundation comes from the personal wealth of Simons and his wife, Laura Baxter-Simons. [6] The foundation also receives funding from Renaissance Technologies, the successful hedge fund that Simons’ father and major Democratic donor, James Simons, created and where Simons spent years as a portfolio manager. [7] Nat Simons currently serves as a board member and vice-chair of Renaissance, in addition to managing Meritage Group LP, a spin-off portfolio of hedge fund and direct investments. [8]. . .

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https://www.influencewatch.org/person/nathaniel-simons/

Nathaniel “Nat” Simons is a billionaire, hedge fund manager, and major donor to left-of-center causes and organizations, much of it through the Sea Change Foundation, a San Francisco-based grantmaking foundation he co-founded in 2006 with his wife, Laura Baxter-Simons. [1] Simons is the son of James Simons, a billionaire, mathematician, retired manager of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, and major Democratic Party donor. [2]

Between 2006 and 2018, Simons donated $480 million through the Sea Change Foundation, almost all of it to left-of-center environmentalist groups including the pass-through funder Energy Foundation, League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, Sierra Club Foundation, and Natural Resources Defense Council. [3] [4]. . .

FAMILY RELATIONS
Nathaniel Simons is the son of James “Jim” Simons, a billionaire listed by Forbes as the second-highest-earning hedge fund manager in the United States in 2018 whose net worth is estimated at $21.5 billion (as of 2019). [5] James Simons is the founder of Renaissance Technologies, which was an early adopter of quantitative models based on statistical analysis; the firm’s most profitable portfolio, the Medallion Fund, which is available only to employees, is one of the most profitable investment funds in history. [6] James and his wife, Marilyn, co-founded the Simons Foundation in 1994, now one of the largest foundations in the United States. [7]

Nathaniel Simons is married to Laura Baxter-Simons. Baxter-Simons is general counsel and chief compliance officer for Meritage Group, an investment management group and Renaissance Technologies spin-off. Baxter-Simons and her husband co-founded Prelude Ventures, a “cleantech” investment firm, in 2009. Prior to that, she was associate counsel and a principal at Renaissance Technologies. [8]

Liz Simons is Nathaniel Simons’ sister and, together with her husband Mark Heising, is the primary donor to the Heising-Simons Foundation, a major left-of-center grantmaking foundation formed in 2007. She is also on the board of the Foundation for a Just Society, a foundation created by her half-sister, Audrey Cappell, that makes grants to LGBT organizations. [9]

Audrey Cappell is Nathaniel Simons’ sister and founder of the Foundation for a Just Society, a left-of-center grantmaking foundation created in 2011 to fund LGBT and feminist organizations. Much of the funding for the Foundation for a Just Society comes from the Audrey Simons Delaware Trust, a trust set up by James Simons in Cappell’s name. [10] She is married to Jacob Cappell, a web producer for the Simons Foundation. [11]

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https://www.influencewatch.org/person/james-simons/

James Simons is a billionaire retired manager of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies and mathematician. Forbes lists Simons the second-highest-earning hedge fund manager in 2018. [1] He is a top donor to liberal causes and the Democratic Party. [2]

Simons was born April 25, 1938, in Newton, Massachusetts. [3] He is regarded as a legendary mathematician, and since his retirement in 2009, he has dedicated much of his philanthropy to scientific research funding. His private foundation, the Simons Foundation, is one of the wealthiest foundations in the country. [4]. . .

Early Life
Simons was born to Matthew and Marcia Simons on April 25, 1938, in Newton, Massachusetts. His first job was in his father’s shoe factory. [5] In 1958, he received his bachelor’s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and went on to earn his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley. [6]

Career
During the Cold War, in 1964, Simons worked as a code breaker for the Institute for Defense Analysis, a contractor for the National Security Agency. He left his job in protest of the Vietnam War. [7] “It would make us stronger to find ways to feed those people in our own country that haven’t enough to eat than it would to develop methods to defoliate the farmlands of North Vietnam… It would make us stronger to find ways to feed those people in our own country that haven’t enough to eat than it would to develop methods to defoliate the farmlands of North Vietnam,” he wrote to the New York Times in 1967. [8]

Stony Brook University appointed Simons head of its mathematics department in 1968. After spending a decade in academia, Simons founded Renaissance Technologies. Using quantitative models based on statistical analysis, Renaissance Technologies surged ahead of its competitors, many of whom still relied on human decision making. The firm’s most profitable portfolio, the Medallion Fund, which is available only to employees, is one of the most profitable investment funds in history. [9]

Philanthropy
In 1994, Simons and his second wife, Marilyn, co-founded the Simons Foundation. The charity was created to fund scientific research, with a special focus on autism research. [10]

Simons founded a second charity, Math For America, in 2004, which seeks to promote and retain math teachers for New York’s secondary schools. [11]. . .

Simons has consistently been one of the Democratic Party’s top donors. He contributed a total of $9,880,700 to Democratic candidates for federal office and other left-wing federal political committees in 2012. [13] In each election cycle since, he has been one of the top ten individual contributors to federal candidates. He donated a total of $26,788,250 during the 2016 elections, of which $16 million went to Hillary Clinton’s Priorities USA Super PAC. [14]

Ironically, Simons’s successor as co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies, Robert Mercer, has donated similar amounts to conservative candidates each year. [15]

Simons donates the majority of his support to Democratic leadership-aligned groups, giving most of his money to Priorities USA, Senate Majority PAC, or House Majority PAC. However, he has also been a major donor to groups such as Planned Parenthood Votes, Women Vote!, and Immigrant Voters Win. [16]. . .

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https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/simons-foundation/

FINANCIAL CONTROVERSIES
In November, 2017, The Guardian reported that James Simons had stashed more than $8 billion in a tax-free offshore account. He was one of the many people named in the so-called Paradise Papers. Simons’s alleged tax sheltering arrangements existed while he was one of the Democratic Party’s heftiest donors, responsible for $27 million during the 2016 election. [9]

In 2015, the New York Times reported that the IRS was reviewing whether Simons’s hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies, had withheld $6.8 billion in taxes. [10] Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) alleged, “Renaissance Technologies was able to avoid paying more than $6 billion in taxes by disguising its day-to-day stock trades as long term investments,” in his opening statement during a 2014 Senate investigation. [11]

The Lord Jim Trust was dissolved in 2010. Lawyers told Simons donating the money to charity was the best way to avoid taxes. The pile was split up among the charities started by Simons and each of his three children, including the Simons Foundation. [12]

During the Obama administration, Opensecrets.org showed a correlation between the President’s legislative priorities and the pet causes of his super-PAC’s largest donors. Simons donated $5 million to Priorities USA Action in 2012, and Obama signed a $1.3 billion bill for autism research in 2014. [13]. . .
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