About

The A-Mark Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit private foundation, incorporated on February 27, 1997, and approved on September 4 of the same year.

Our Mission:

Supporting, researching, and posting unbiased political and social information to advance education, discussion, and debate; Providing funding to individuals and organizations that are serving a charitable, educational, or humanitarian purpose.

Therefore, we primarily:

-Produce and commission unbiased research on social and political issues, and make all of the research available for free on our website; and

-Provide funding to individuals and organizations that are serving a charitable, educational, or humanitarian purpose.

Some Programs Funded:

  1. RAND Center on Housing and Homelessness in Los Angeles: Funding from the A-Mark Foundation supported RAND’s LA LEADS (Longitudinal Enumeration and Demographic Survey Study) research in 2023. The center is conducting surveys to learn more about the experiences of unsheltered people in Los Angeles.
  2. Los Angeles Press Club Fellowship: In partnership with the LA Press Club, A-Mark Foundation funded the 2023 A-Mark Fellowship for Reporting on Misinformation and Disinformation to award grants of up to $2,000 to journalists for stories on misinformation and disinformation.
  3. Los Angeles Press Club Award: The A-Mark Prize for Reporting on Misinformation and Disinformation was created in 2023 to award pieces journalism published on any platform that excelled at examining misinformation or disinformation in the public discourse. The $4,000 first prize went to Miranda Green and Mario Ariza of Floodlight and David Folkenflick of National Public Radio for, “Power Play: How utilities paid a consulting group that infiltrated local news media, attacked clean energy foes and intimidated public officials.” Second prize went to James Rainey, Los Angeles Times, for, “His website skewers Stockton politicians and agencies. Then one gave him a cushy job.” Sam Kestenbaum received third prize for his Rolling Stone article, “Who is Clay Clark? Inside the Misinformation Roadshow Barnstorming America.”
  4. Skid Row Portable Toilet Monitoring Program: In partnership with the LA Mayor’s Office, the Skid Row Brigade, and the ILM Foundation, A-Mark Foundation funded a pilot program in 2021 to collect data on the effectiveness of monitoring the approximately 50 portable toilets installed on Skid Row in response to COVID. Without monitors, the units are quickly vandalized or destroyed. The monitors were able to help the Mayor’s office prioritize resources to keep the toilets in better repair.
  5. The Three Richard A. Clarke National Scholarly Monograph Competitions: The competition ran in 2011, 2012 and 2013, covering lessons learned from 9/11; effective, alternative means of preventing violent extremism; and the question of whether drone attacks are moral or legal. Visit the competition page for links to the resulting essays.

Some Books We Support:

  1. ACLU in the Supreme Court: This three-volume work is the only compilation of the (estimated) 1,193 cases decided by the US Supreme Court in which the ACLU was involved during the Union’s first 100 years, ending Jan. 19, 2020. Additionally, there is a small companion handbook containing all the facts and data in the three-volume set, except the handbook only has three (as examples) of the (estimated) 1,193 case overviews. This project is seeking an agent and/or publisher to represent the Handbook, the three-volume set or both. There can be a five-figure marketing budget available to help market the books.
  2. The Case Against George W. Bush: Best of Los Angeles Award for “Best Political Book – 2020” – “A provocative, readable indictment for our time.” – Kirkus Review. In the book, George W. Bush is accused of three crimes: Criminal negligence; Torture; and Misleading our country into unnecessarily attacking Iraq in 2003. The book is written by The A-Mark Foundation founder and CEO, Steven C. Markoff.The Case against Bush is told through almost 600 sourced quotes from over 100 published books and reports. Authors quoted include those from all over the political spectrum including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair; Hans Blix, head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from March 2000 to June 2003; President George W. Bush; former Vice President Richard “Dick” Cheney; former US Senator Russ Feingold; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; and writers and journalists such as Steve Coll, Frank Rich, Craig Unger, and Bob Woodward. In addition, Richard A. Clarke, respected internationally as a counter-terrorism expert, wrote the book’s Foreword. The first few sentences of that Foreword:
    “For some Americans, George W. Bush looks good by comparison to the incumbent, Donald Trump. In his post-presidency, Bush has devoted himself to worthy causes and acted in a bipartisan manner. The 43rd president should, however, be judged not by comparison to America’s worst president, nor by what Bush may have done after leaving office. He should be evaluated for his actions in office, his nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance. This volume from Steven Markoff provides the evidence for such an evaluation. You can judge for yourself.”

    Markoff was interviewed by Ralph Nader on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour “where he dispassionately lays out the three major war crimes the former president committed by invading Iraq.”

    100% of the royalties the author would normally receive from the book are being directly donated to the non-profit National September 11 Memorial & Museum in NYC. Available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound, Powells, Bookshop.org, and Rare Bird (for signed copies).

  3. Threats: Intimidation and its Discontents: Author David P. Barash, published by Oxford University Press on October 1, 2020. This book examines a range of intimidation-based threats, ranging from its use in animals, through threats of punishment (especially execution) and of eternal torment in the afterlife — intended to intimidate people into behaving as desired, and especially focused on the most serious, dangerous, and ill-advised threat of all: that of nuclear deterrence.
  4. Trump University: The book’s goal is to take an in-depth, nonpartisan look at Trump University from its beginning to its end, determined to sort out the truth from the divergent stories about the enterprise given by Donald Trump and his critics. (The work is complete except for final edits, but has not been published.)