Eric Trump Foundation Funneled Cancer Charity Donations to Trump Organization Businesses

The Eric Trump Foundation, ostensibly dedicated to raising money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to fight childhood cancer, systematically funneled charitable donations to Trump Organization businesses by paying inflated costs for charity golf events held at Trump properties. Despite Eric Trump’s claims that his family donated the use of Trump golf courses for “free,” the Foundation actually paid Trump businesses at least $1.2 million for event costs between 2011-2015. The Foundation charged donors tens of thousands to attend charity golf tournaments, claimed all proceeds went to sick children, but instead directed significant portions to Trump Organization entities through grossly inflated facility fees and expenses.

Background

Eric Trump established his foundation in 2006 with the stated mission of raising money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The foundation’s marquee fundraising event was an annual celebrity golf tournament at Trump National Golf Club in Westchester, New York. Eric Trump repeatedly told donors and the media that the Trump family donated all costs, including the golf course use, meaning 100% of donations would go to St. Jude. This claim was featured prominently in fundraising materials and media coverage, with Eric personally assuring donors: “We get to use our assets 100% free of charge.”

Investigative reporting by Forbes revealed this claim was false. Tax filings showed the Eric Trump Foundation paid Trump-owned businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars for tournament costs. In 2012 alone, the Foundation paid Trump National Golf Club $59,085 for a tournament that claimed to be fully donated. By 2015, after Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign, costs billed to the Foundation ballooned to over $300,000 for a single event. The investigation found that costs at Trump properties were massively inflated compared to market rates - for example, being charged for expensive wine service at an event where corporate sponsors had donated the wine for free.

Even more problematically, some Foundation funds were used to purchase items at charity auctions that directly benefited the Trump family, including a Tim Tebow-signed helmet and football that were placed in Donald Trump’s office. The pattern mirrored the self-dealing found at the Donald J. Trump Foundation, suggesting a family-wide culture of treating charitable organizations as extensions of the Trump business empire.

Significance

The Eric Trump Foundation scandal demonstrated that charity fraud was not limited to Donald Trump personally but represented a systematic Trump family practice. The scheme was particularly cynical because it exploited donors’ compassion for children with cancer, assuring them their money would go to sick kids while actually funneling it through Trump businesses. Eric Trump’s emphatic false statements that the family donated everything for free made the deception especially brazen.

Following the Forbes investigation, the Eric Trump Foundation stopped hosting events at Trump properties and eventually shut down entirely in 2017. The scandal added to the mounting evidence of Trump family charity abuse that would lead to New York State barring Donald Trump from operating charities and requiring mandatory ethics training. The case exemplified how the Trump Organization treated charitable giving as a profit center, charging its own family foundations inflated costs while publicly claiming generosity. For donors who thought they were helping children fight cancer, the revelation that their money instead enriched Trump businesses while funding the Trump family’s reputational laundering represented a particularly cruel form of fraud.