Market Basket workers have told stories about the grocery chain’s CEO, Arthur T. Demoulas, helping them out in a pinch or how the company’s profit-sharing program has allowed them to retire comfortably after long careers with the company.
The Tewksbury-based chain has been battled over for years
by the founding Demoulas family — perhaps never more visibly than in recent months — and the board of directors has approved a $300 million payout to shareholders and moved toward replacing the CEO.
Meanwhile, two namesake charities affiliated with the Telemachus Demoulas side of the family have quietly donated millions of dollars each year to schools, churches, hospitals and community groups like the Boys & Girls Club and the YMCA.
In the last three years alone, the two charities combined have given more than $15 million, benefiting a wide range of organizations across Eastern Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire, according to records filed with the Attorney General’s Office. Over the last decade, they’ve given more than $41 million.
The donations don’t make the news and aren’t listed on the company’s website — in fact, the company doesn’t even have a website. Even when the names of the two Market Basket-affiliated charities make the news, they’re generally listed only as sponsors, not in headline-grabbing stories.
Stop & Shop, perhaps Market Basket’s biggest competitor, trumpets its donations on its website, noting hunger relief, schools and cancer causes to which it has contributed. Hannaford also has a page on its website devoted to the Hannaford Charitable Foundation, which it says has given more than $12 million over the last 10 years.
The Demoulas family is low-key with its charitable giving and very private, something reflected in the company’s no-frills style. Arthur T. Demoulas — son of Telemachus Demoulas, co-founder with brother George — declined to comment for this story.
Demoulas’ tenure as CEO is in jeopardy, as the company’s board of directors has hired an executive search firm, something analysts have said could indicate the board is seeking Demoulas’ replacement.
Most of the beneficiaries of the company’s generosity who were contacted for this story either declined to comment or didn’t return phone calls.
Mark Reimer, executive director of special initiatives at UMass Lowell’s university advancement office, said some companies see no value in charitable giving, while others see it as brand-building or marketing.
“The best ones are the ones that understand their role as corporate citizens,” said Reimer, who stressed he was speaking generally about corporate giving and not specifically about Market Basket.
“I think one principle that applies to any company is that corporations that recognize their role in a community and do give back at a level that makes a difference and to causes that really make a difference, are really the best kind of company,” he said.
“To me, a company that gives that kind of money away but does it in a quiet way is doing it for all the right reasons,” he said.
In public companies, shareholders sometimes prefer companies not give money away because they feel they are entitled to the earnings, Reimer said.
Though Market Basket is a private company, it has nine family shareholders, divided roughly evenly between the Telemachus Demoulas and George Demoulas sides of the family. Shareholder payments have been among sources of contention in the family, many members of which have become very wealthy thanks to the company.
“In my experience in corporate giving, a company of that size in a region like ours that has given that kind of money is exceedingly generous,” Reimer said of Market Basket. “Some are not generous at all, frankly.”
The biggest recipient of Demoulas charities has been the Lowell Plan, an economic-development organization for the city, which has received well over $10 million in the last decade. Hospitals have also been major recipients, especially Lowell General Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, which were given $1 million and $1.75 million, respectively, in recent years, with hundreds of thousands more previously.
Bentley University — alma mater of Arthur T. Demoulas and many top Market Basket executives — has received $1 million and Boston College has been given $500,000.
At least 19 Boys & Girls Clubs, from Salem, N.H., to Worcester, have been given thousands each, and YMCAs from Keene, N.H., to New Bedford have benefited. Though schools, like the Academy of Notre Dame and Central Catholic High School, are common beneficiaries, contributions are given to a wide range of groups: from the Boston Ballet and Boston Museum of Science to Camp Sunshine in Maine and the Lowell Lacrosse Association.
The donations come from two charitable foundations: the Telemachus and Irene Demoulas Family Foundation, which was created in 2001 and carries more than $61 million in assets, and smaller the Demoulas Foundation, which started in 1980 and with more than $30 million in assets.
The first foundation generally gives away more than $3 million each year, while the second one donates about half that. The Telemachus and Irene Demoulas Family Foundation, named for Arthur T.’s parents, typically donates at least $100,000 each to about 10 causes, while the Demoulas Foundation chooses dozens of generally the same organizations each year to give relatively smaller donations.
Of the larger Telemachus and Irene Demoulas Family Foundation, the family typically contributes more than $200,000 a year, with the remaining revenue coming from dividends and interest. But in 2008, Irene Demoulas contributed more than $10 million. Nearly $1.9 million of that went toward The Lowell Plan, and the rest scattered among schools, churches and hospitals.
The Demoulases also gave more than $10 million each in 2006 and 2007, with $3.8 million for The Lowell Plan those two years combined.
Greek Orthodox churches have been major recipients, including Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church in Lowell. The Rev. Thomas Chininis said the Demoulas foundations’ contributions, which in recent years have ranged between $10,000 and $15,000, have helped with daily operating costs and support extra services in the parish and the community.
They are among the largest corporate donors to the church, he said.
“Their generosity through the years has been exemplary,” Chininis said.
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