Vice President Joe Biden smiles during a ceremony in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington on Jan. 12, 2017. (Susan Walsh/AP)
Former vice president Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, on Wednesday will launch the Biden Foundation, a charitable organization with a wide-ranging agenda, including fighting cancer, preventing sexual assault, supporting military families and promoting education.
The foundation, which is incorporated in Delaware but will be headquartered in Washington, will provide an avenue for the Bidens to champion the same kinds of policies they pursued while serving in the White House.
“We look forward to this new chapter where we will continue our work to ensure that everyone — no matter their income level, race, gender, age, or sexuality — is treated with dignity and gets a fair shot at achieving the American Dream,” the couple said in a statement.
Joe Biden said in a recent interview with The Washington Post that he planned to establish a nonprofit organization that could address a broad range of cancer issues, an issue that has become central to him after he lost his oldest son, Beau, to the disease in May 2015.
The foundation, according to the statement, will also support Jill Biden’s “work to increase access to high quality affordable education” in the United States and globally, along with several other issues.
[Biden to focus on cancer in his post-White House life]
While the new organization bears a resemblance to some other presidential foundations, there are also key differences. It will not accept donations from foreign citizens, entities or other sources, unlike the Clinton Foundation. But it will accept money from private foundations or donor-advised funds, as well as corporate foundations, according to a foundation representative who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the issue before the official announcement.
Several of the Bidens’ closest friends and advisers, as well as the former vice president’s sister, will play key roles in steering the foundation’s mission. The board of directors will include Valerie Biden Owens and four men who have worked for Biden in different capacities over the years: former senator Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), Washington lawyers Mark Gitenstein and Jeff Peck, and Mark Angelson, a trustee and vice chairman of the Institute of International Education.
Louisa Terrell, who most recently worked as an adviser to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and previously worked for Biden in the Senate, as well for Yahoo and Facebook, will serve as the foundation’s executive director.