The world of nonprofits is vast — including everything from tiny charities to giant hospitals, from political committees to global aid organizations. Because of the great work that many of them do, nonprofits often get special status in our societies, with lighter regulation and reflexive public trust.

David Fahrenthold is interested in how these trusted groups are used, abused and policed — both in America and around the world. He has been a reporter since 2000, and he spent his first 22 years at The Washington Post. He started as a night-cops reporter, covering homicides in the District of Columbia, and later covered the environment, New England, Congress, and the federal bureaucracy.

His first foray into nonprofit reporting came in 2016, when he wrote a series of stories for The Post about Donald J. Trump’s private foundation. As a result of those stories, a New York judge ordered Mr. Trump to shut down his foundation and pay a $2 million penalty. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. He joined The Times in early 2022, to take on the nonprofit beat full time.

He’s a native of Houston, Texas, and a graduate of Harvard.

Fahrenthold briefed National Press Foundation fellows in September 2025: Investigating Nonprofits: The New York Times’ David Fahrenthold Shares His Secrets.