Ben Cohen, left, and Jerry Greenfield in 2017. Courtesy photo.
After 40 years of supporting grassroots social change, the Foundation will be forced to suspend operations unless it obtains a favorable ruling in its legal challenge
Vermont Business Magazine The Ben & Jerry's Foundation today announced it will suspend operations as of December 31, 2026, unless it obtains a favorable ruling in its legal challenge to its loss of funding. The Foundation is actively pursuing that challenge which is expected to extend into next year and is fully committed to seeing it through. This year-end suspension of operations follows the April 2025 decision by Unilever’s spinoff, The Magnum Ice Cream Company (TMICC), to cut the Foundation's funding and its more recent mandate for the Foundation to vacate its corporate office by today, July 15, 2026. Without these essential resources, the Foundation cannot continue its work.
For its part, Magnum told VermontBiz that the dispute emanates from the Foundation not following the recommendations of an audit report.
"After forty years of investing in grassroots organizations working to make the world a more just and better place, TMICC is causing us to shut down at exactly the moment that work is most urgently needed,” said Liz Bankowski, President of the Board of Trustees. “While we’ve lost funding and been removed from our office, we stand firm in the belief that the law and the facts are on our side.”
Since its founding, the Ben & Jerry's Foundation has been unwavering in its mission: to support progressive social change at the grassroots level and to engage Ben & Jerry's employees in that work. Last October, the Foundation celebrated its 40th anniversary, a milestone honoring thousands of small grassroots organizations whose work to advance justice, human dignity, and environmental protection was bolstered by the Foundation's early and often catalytic support. Beyond the national grants program, the withdrawal of funds also affects roughly $600,000 contributed annually across Vermont through an employee match program and employee-directed local Community Action Team and Vermont Equity & Justice Grants.
For more than 25 years, following Unilever's acquisition of Ben & Jerry's in 2000, the Foundation operated without corporate interference - a true testament to the integrity of the original merger agreement. That agreement established an Independent Board to oversee the company's product integrity and historic social mission and provided for Foundation funding under an annual formula. The Foundation's independence was never questioned, even when it funded Migrant Justice during a period when that organization was considering a boycott of Ben & Jerry's. Rather than interfering, Ben and Jerry’s, led by the Independent Board, responded by becoming the first dairy company to establish a human rights program designed and built by farm workers themselves.
"The Ben & Jerry's Foundation was a key early funder for our work; they helped us get to where we are today," said Will Lambek, of Migrant Justice. "They believed in the human rights vision of Vermont farmworkers, even when it brought us into direct conflict with the company itself. The Foundation's decision to fund Migrant Justice while we were campaigning against Ben & Jerry's was a testament to its independence, courage, and integrity. They have brought that same integrity to all of their funding decisions over the past forty years."
Everything changed in early 2025, when Unilever restructured its ice cream businesses under a new corporate entity, TMICC. Using a pretextual governance review and a promised but never-disclosed audit, TMICC moved to remove a Foundation trustee and members of Ben and Jerry’s Independent Board and to cut off funding to the Foundation. The Foundation joined the Independent Board in a legal challenge under the merger contract, the case that is currently pending in federal court in New York.
"We are a $6 million foundation,” said Bankowski. “TMICC is a multi-billion-dollar multinational corporation. This is exactly the kind of David and Goliath fight our grantees face every day – and like them we are not backing down. It breaks our hearts that we are being forced to step back at such an urgent time, when community organizations across the country who rely on funders like us are facing growing resistance in their fights for justice, human dignity, and environmental protection. We urge other funders to step forward and support grassroots activism. Local organizing has never been more critical."
The Foundation is deeply grateful to its dedicated staff, Becca Golden, Lisa Pendolino, and Dana Jeffery, whose combined 80 years of service reflect the depth of commitment that has defined the Foundation's culture. It also thanks the hundreds of Ben & Jerry's employees who served on grantmaking committees and participated in learning tours over the years, bringing the company's social mission to life in the company’s day-to-day operations.
A spokesperson for The Magnum Ice Cream Company sent VermontBiz the following statement Wednesday afternoon:
“We are deeply disappointed to read the press release from the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation Trustees regarding the Foundation - an organisation which has to date received $60m from Unilever / TMICC - that mischaracterises events past and present. The decision to suspend operations is entirely down to the Trustees and their decision to ignore the findings of an independent audit and failure to put in place basic good governance; much to our dismay. TMICC remains firmly committed to funding a grant-giving foundation and to supporting the Ben & Jerry’s team and its three-part mission – making great ice cream and campaigning on the causes the brand cares about.”
“As the Trustees know, for TMICC’s public listing, independent audits were conducted across various parts of the business, including the Foundation. The Trustee President – Liz Bankowski - agreed to the scope of the audit and the retention of E&Y as the independent auditor, and a summary of the findings was shared with her last Autumn. The findings found clear conflicts of interest and a lack of governance and financial controls, with the Foundation making grants to organisations where Board trustees held senior positions and even received compensation.
"As Liz will recall, Ben & Jerry’s invited the Trustees to work with them on implementing a stronger governance framework, which they declined for reasons that remain unclear, and the paper policies that the Foundation put in place did not fully remedy. The Foundation has since initiated legal action, again for reasons that are unclear, and more recently took the position that its staff are not Ben & Jerry’s employees, despite utilising Ben & Jerry’s offices and systems, and not bound by Ben & Jerry’s policies.
"Despite that, Ben & Jerry’s has tried to continue its partnership and collaboration with the Foundation as they work through the 2026 grant-making process, enabling the Foundation’s staff to use Ben & Jerry’s offices, email addresses, and IT systems, at no cost, despite the litigation that the Trustees chose to pursue.
"To date, Unilever/TMICC has given $60m in grants to grassroots causes through the Foundation, and TMICC is firmly committed to funding a grant-giving foundation, supported by appropriate governance controls to ensure it is living by its values.
"Our focus remains where it belongs: on supporting the Ben & Jerry’s team and its three-part mission while making great ice cream and campaigning on the causes the brand cares about – and the team is doing a fantastic job.”
Founded in 1985, the Ben & Jerry's Foundation has provided funding and support to hundreds of grassroots organizations working for progressive social change across the United States, with a focus on community organizing, environmental justice, racial equity, and human rights. For more information about the Foundation please visit www.benandjerrysfoundation.org.
Separate from the Foundation announcement, Ben Cohen, who founded the Foundation in the 1980s and has been campaigning against Magnum’s ownership of Ben & Jerry’s due to repeated violations of its social mission, had this to say:
"The Ben & Jerry's Foundation was founded in order to use the highest percentage of profits of any publicly held corporation to fund grassroots organizations working for social, racial, economic, and environmental justice. A critical founding principle was that the foundation needed to be totally independent of the company — that its grants could not be determined based on what would be best for Ben & Jerry's, but rather what would be best for people who were suffering. I've been in awe of how well the Trustees of the Foundation and the employees of Ben & Jerry's have embraced and actualized those founding principles. For Magnum Corporation to now be shutting down the Ben & Jerry's Foundation is a profound betrayal of everything it was created to stand for. And I will do everything I can to oppose this abuse of power and help Magnum to see the light. As Jerry and I have always said, 'there is a spiritual aspect to business, just as there is to the lives of individuals. As you give, you receive. As you help others, you're helped in return. As your business supports the community, the community supports your business.'
Ben & Jerry's Homemade was founded in 1978 in Burlington, Vermont, by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield.
Founded in 1985, the Ben & Jerry's Foundation has provided funding and support to hundreds of grassroots organizations working for progressive social change across the United States, with a focus on community organizing, environmental justice, racial equity, and human rights. For more information about the Foundation please visit www.benandjerrysfoundation.org.
7.15.2026. South Burlington, VT - Ben & Jerry's Foundation
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