When Joe Biden announced his presidential library plans back in September, the writing was already on the wall. Donors were checked out, interest was nonexistent, and the whole thing smelled like a vanity project nobody wanted to fund. Now, a New York Times article confirms what was painfully obvious from the start — Biden’s library is turning into an epic fundraising disaster.
The numbers are embarrassing. According to the report, Biden’s library foundation received no new donations in 2024, the final year of his presidency. All of its initial funding — a measly $4 million — came from leftover cash from Biden’s 2021 inauguration, not from donors eager to immortalize his legacy. The foundation refuses to disclose how much, if anything, it has raised in 2025, which obviously means the number is so disastrously low that they’re too embarrassed to give figures publicly.
Biden is about to actively seek donations for the project, but this isn’t exactly a sign that help is on the way. He’s hosting his first event explicitly aimed at potential library donors on Monday in Georgetown, but calling it a fundraiser would be generous. I’m not expecting this social hour to move the needle much.
The news actually gets worse.
Biden’s foundation told the Internal Revenue Service that it expects to raise a grand total of about $11.3 million by the end of 2027. That figure is laughably low compared to what recent presidents have accomplished. George W. Bush’s team hit its $500 million fundraising goal before his library was even dedicated. Obama’s library reportedly costs about $850 million. Even President Trump’s library expects to raise more than $900 million.
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Biden’s team has vaguely suggested the project would cost somewhere between the Obama Presidential Center and the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, which raised $43 million — a ridiculous range. Frankly, I suspect he’ll be lucky to raise $30 million. Honestly, the slow fundraising pace and pathetically low goals raise serious questions about whether Biden’s library will ever be built as a standalone institution or will end up far more modest.
I’d bet on the latter.
The foundation hasn’t released details on a final site, design, or construction timeline, which tells you everything you need to know about how underdeveloped this effort remains. I hate to make predictions, but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Biden’s library were absorbed into the Penn Biden Center, shrinking his presidential legacy to a humiliatingly small footprint.
The struggles Biden is facing here speak volumes about how little he, as a person, and frankly, as president, mattered to the Democratic Party. He was useful when they needed him to win, then discarded when his cognitive decline became impossible to hide. Now that he’s out of office, the big-money donors who bankrolled his campaigns know a lost cause when they see one, and clearly figured out there’s no benefit to being attached to his presidential library.
This is the epilogue Biden deserves after a disastrous presidency. No one wants to write checks to celebrate four years of runaway inflation, botched foreign policy, and a party that ultimately shoved him aside for Kamala Harris. The lack of enthusiasm for his library isn’t just about money — it’s a reflection of how thoroughly Biden’s time in office has been rejected… even by his party.
And when his own supporters can’t muster the energy or the dollars to preserve his legacy, that might be the most fitting tribute of all.
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