Snapshot: Stewart, an early career politician, evolved into a steady supporter of the Democratic Party, and he and his wife Sandy are reliable funders of national liberal groups.
Location: Fulton, MD
Giving Focus: Democratic Party power, top-level Democratic campaigns
Top Recipients: DCCC, Unite the Country, DSCC
Background: The Bainums owe their wealth in large part to Stewart Bainum Sr., who founded the nursing home chain ManorCare, Inc. Stewart Bainum Jr. would take over the business in 1987 and go on to head Choice Hotels International, but before that, he served in the Maryland state legislature—first in the state House of Delegates then the state Senate. As an elected Democrat, he became a skilled fundraiser and even raised a record-setting $1 million in his failed bid for Congress. Bainum and his wife Sandy, a professional actor, singer and dancer, move much of their philanthropy through the Bainum Family Foundation.
Stewart Bainum’s latest focus is buying major city newspapers. Earlier in 2021, Bainum made a bid for the Chicago Tribune, ultimately losing out to a hedge fund which bought the paper. He’d go on to take over the Baltimore Sun, which will be run as a non-profit, along with a couple other Maryland-based papers including The Capital Gazette and the Carroll County Times. Bainum seems determined to keep his local papers in business and demonstrate a new, sustainable model for legacy publications.
Stewart was more successful as a candidate at the state level than the federal level; but throughout his career, he’s been a skilled fundraiser. He helped raise significant money for Obama ahead of his reelection and was deeply invested in getting Joe Biden to unseat President Donald Trump. When donating directly to candidates around the country, the Bainums tend to back incumbents, rarely investing in challengers.
The Bainums have been longtime donors to the Democratic Party and have consistently been steady liberals in their giving. Their close relationships with some of the party’s most influential figures and lack of notable gifts to the party’s new batch of progressive indicate they skew more toward the establishment of the party and see winning power from conservatives as the top priority. Living just outside Washington, D.C., the Bainums became known during President Barack Obama’s administration as can’t-miss fundraiser hosts within the Beltway—the couple hosted Obama at a reelection event that brought in $2.5 million in 2012. The Bainums routinely support Democrats in Maryland’s state legislature and make donations to candidates around the country and gifts to the party’s national PACs and funds.
While the couple gave relatively modest gifts in support of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, they have since ratcheted up their giving: In 2020, they’ve collectively given $1.23 million to the Biden Victory Fund, $2 million to anti-Trump Unite the Country PAC, and tens of thousands more to the DCCC and other Democratic Party funds.
Lessons for BT readers: Most average donors don’t have a multi-generation family foundation to lead their philanthropy, but the Bainum Family Foundation offers a good example of how issue-focused giving can look. Some top-level philanthropists with foundations will spread their money across a variety of different areas; the Bainums have maintained a focus on child welfare and education that has allowed them to become established in those spaces. As for Bainum’s efforts to buy news organizations, this is a good example of using money more directly to achieve a goal. BT donors could potentially replicate this kind of intervention on a smaller scale in their own community, perhaps pooling money to keep a bookstore or valuable community space alive by funding it directly, rather than going through a charity organization.