The Obama administration ran into a problem in 2013 where an IRS official admitted that the IRS had been targeting applications for 501c4 status from organizations with Tea Party in their name. Congress passed a bill called the Protecting Americans Against Tax Hikes Act or the Path Act, which did a bunch of things to 501c4s. The Schonards are side beneficiaries of this Tea Party tempest in a teapot. So now they can give their Patagonia stock to their 501c4. They don't pay gift tax there. The 501c4 can then spend on political campaigns. As long as the political campaign expenditures are less than 50% of the total budget of the 501