Mayor Steve Noble said this week he has no concerns about NoVo Foundation’s impact on the city after an investigative piece in an online magazine laid out the breadth of the charity’s operations in the city — and raised issues of transparency and sustainability.

Noble pushed back against how the article, written by Sean Cooper and published on the Tablet website, depicts the billion-dollar nonprofit dedicated to advancing founder Peter Buffett’s vision of post-capitalist “localism.” Instead, the mayor argued, the nonprofit simply lends its financial muscle to advancing goals already laid out in both the city’s comprehensive plan, and the mission statements of dozens of local cultural and charitable organizations that have benefited from NoVo support in recent years.

“While I appreciate the support NoVo is providing, ultimately this work is happening because local community members are committed to making Kingston a place that all of our neighbors can thrive,” Noble wrote in an email. “Our community is leading this effort, not the other way around.”

The NoVo Foundation was founded by Peter Buffett and wife Jennifer back in 2006 using a $1 billion gift from Peter Buffett’s father, Berkshire Hathaway founder Warren Buffett. Regular infusions of valuable Berkshire Hathaway stock have helped propel the couple’s charitable foundation into the highest echelons of the philanthropic world.

NoVo began its investment in Ulster County in 2014 when the foundation purchased the 1,500-acre Gill farm which at the time was in danger of falling into the hands of real-estate developers. Instead, NoVo transformed the family farm into a hub for agricultural education and research.

An account of what has happened since then is laid out in a long-form investigative piece by journalist Sean Cooper in the online news platform Tablet published last week.

The article “What Happens When a Buffett Buys Your Town?” contends that since the purchase of the Gill Farm, the foundation has spent at least $160 million and possibly as much as $250 million in Kingston and the surrounding area. Cooper’s article, and the Kingston Wire’s own reporting show NoVo money has flowed into an astonishing array of local charitable and cultural institutions. Alongside wholly-owned NoVo projects like Radio Kingston and the farm hub, organizations receiving support from NoVo include the YMCA which, according to public tax information, in 2018 got $4.8 million for capital improvements, “project support” and a program that introduces youth to farming. Other familiar recipients of NoVo funds in 2018 include the United Way ($2.25 million), Family of Woodstock ($1.25 million), the Hudson Valley LGBTQ center ($750,000), Rise Up Kingston ($600,000) and People’s Place ($200,000).

Those records show that the foundation is also deeply involved in local government. In 2018 alone Ulster County government received $4.1 million from the foundation for “project support.” Meanwhile, NoVo is one of 22 applicants seeking rights to take over a portion of the former IBM campus now held by the county for back taxes. County Executive Pat Ryan did not return calls seeking comment.

In the City of Kingston, NoVo funds a number of programs and positions at City Hall focused on wellness, climate change and the arts. The foundation also funds the social justice group Rise Up Kingston, which regularly marches on City Hall to denounce the Noble administration for, it says, upholding systemic racism.

The foundation is also the primary funder of the Kingston City Land Bank. The land bank was formed in 2018 as a public/private partnership charged with rehabilitating homes held by the city for back taxes and selling them at below-market rates to low- and moderate-income first-time homebuyers. Noble sits on the land bank’s board of directors.

In its first year of operations, the land bank relied on employees of the city’s Office of Economic & Community Development working part-time for administrative support. Officials at the land bank, meanwhile, said that a requirement that the city be made whole for back taxes on the properties was imposed by the foundation, which then provided the money to do so. In his statement, Noble said the city receives “very minimal direct grant funding” from NoVo.

Much of the foundation’s local spending is disbursed in ways that mask the source or the recipients of the money. For example, the Kingston City Land Bank was funded by NoVo, but the money was allocated via the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley, a nonprofit that administers anonymous donations.

Other NoVo money flows through “donor-advised funds” that don’t require public disclosure of recipients. In 2018, tax documents show NoVo disbursed $540,000 of this kind of funding. Cooper’s article claims that in 2019 that number was $15 million.

Cooper’s article, which relied heavily on anonymous sources to describe the inner workings of NoVo, describes a culture of secrecy at the foundation including a requirement that employees sign a nondisclosure agreement and an “unwritten rule” forbidding recipients of NoVo aid from publicly criticizing the foundation, or its founders.

The article also contends that unlike most charitable organizations which rely on advisory boards or rigorous vetting of grant applications, NoVo’s expenditures are guided by the Buffetts alone.

NoVo did not respond to Kingston Wire’s request for comment, but in Facebook postings Peter Buffett flatly denied that NoVo employees are bound by nondisclosure agreements. On the issue of transparency, Buffett echoed Noble’s contention that his foundation supports — not leads — efforts to revitalize the city.

“We stayed quiet because the work being done isn’t about us,” Buffett wrote in a Facebook thread about the Tablet piece. “It’s about the work being done in the community (That was happening before we came-we hoped to relieve the pressure of constant fundraising among other things) I’m not interested in power, money or fame. That seems to be difficult for many people to grasp- including [The author of the Tablet piece].”

Noble, meanwhile, said much of the work funded by NoVo had already been vetted by local government and the community.

“The city has done a lot of planning with a lot of community input,” said Noble. “That makes it easy for nonprofits to work in synergy with those plans and I think that’s what we’re seeing with the NoVo Foundation.”

Along with the issue of transparency, the Tablet article questioned the sustainability of Buffett’s efforts in Kingston. Cooper points to the example of NoVo’s earlier efforts on behalf of women and girls. In the 2010s, the foundation’s efforts were focused largely on efforts to help women of color, support girls’ education globally and combat sex trafficking. In 2019, Cooper’s article contends, those efforts abruptly halted as the foundation shifted its focus to community building. The shift, the Tablet piece contends, left dozens of organizations suddenly high and dry. Sources in the article warn that NoVo’s work in Kingston could end just as abruptly, leading to massive disruption in a nonprofit sector that has grown dependent on the foundation.

In another Facebook post, Buffett disputes the article’s claim that the withdrawal from women’s issues was sudden or left any organization in the lurch. In Kingston, meanwhile, Buffett recently committed to continuing his efforts for 10 more years.

“NoVo is not an in-perpetuity foundation — we will not exist forever. We are deeply committed to this community and this work, though, and so although we cannot be here indefinitely, we are committing to at least another decade,” Buffett wrote in a piece posted on the Medium website. “The sorts of questions we have for ourselves, our partners, and Kingston as a whole are: where along this path to self-reliance, equity and ecological restoration do we want to be by then? What new systems or institutions need to emerge to make that possible and which can be left to the past? And what do we need to do to make sure that any reliance on NoVo is distributed or made sustainable by then?”

Full disclosure: Kingston Wire has a business relationship with Radio Kingston, a NoVo-funded organization, that will end in September. To date there are no plans to sustain the relationship, though informal discussions continue.