Between April 2021 and November 2024, Sanders directed his presidential and senatorial campaign accounts to deposit $775,000 into the Sanders Institute, campaign finance records show. The arrangement has been a financial windfall for Sanders’s stepson, David Driscoll, who, according to tax disclosures, earned $120,000 working as the nonprofit organization’s executive director in 2023. Tax documents do not disclose how much Jane O’Meara Sanders, the senator’s wife, earns as a fellow at the nonprofit organization.

The contributions from the senator’s campaigns aren’t just a drop in the bucket for his family’s foundation. In 2021, for instance, the Sanders Institute reported $716,618 in contributions. Roughly half that, $350,000, came from the senator’s shuttering presidential campaign. In 2023, campaign finance records show that his Senate campaign account sent well over $200,000 to the Sanders Institute, which reported just $228,000 in donation revenue that year. Moreover, Driscoll’s compensation accounted for nearly a third of the Sanders Institute’s expenditures in 2023.

The senator’s use of campaign funds to keep his family charity running shows no signs of slowing down, as recently released disclosures indicate that his Senate campaign sent $150,000 to the Sanders Institute on Nov. 12, 2024. The flow of cash into the senator’s campaign coffers isn’t set to slow down either, as he filed to run for reelection in 2030 on Monday. He will be 89 years old at the time of his next election. 

Using campaign funds for “personal use” is prohibited by the Federal Election Commission. Contributions to charities are not considered personal use “as long as neither the candidate nor any member of the candidate’s family receives compensation from the charitable organization before it has expended the entire amount donated,” according to the commission. Funds donated from a campaign to a charity must also have “been used for purposes that do not personally benefit the candidate.”

A spokesperson for the charity said the funds donated by the campaign in 2021 would not be used to pay the salaries or benefits of the senator’s family members, according to local media. It is unclear if that policy is still in place.

The Vermont senator was critical of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s relationship with the Clinton Foundation during the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, arguing that it would have opened her up to foreign and corporate influence if she was elected president. The senator’s personal wealth has exploded since his 2016 presidential run, with book advances and royalties propelling his net worth to around $3 million. 

The Sanders Institute’s mission statement asserts that it exists to engage “individuals, organizations and the media in the pursuit of progressive solutions to economic, environmental, racial, and social justice issues.”

Alongside hosting summits where left-of-center policy items are discussed, the organization also hosts an array of notable progressives as fellows. Among them are Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), liberal economist Robert Reich, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), professor Cornel West, and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA).

Sanders and his family’s charity did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s requests for comment.