Shaw has donated US$2.25 million to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC supporting Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and $1 million to Organizing for Action.
Through the Shaw Family Endowment Fund, by 2014 he and his wife have donated $400,000 to the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, $400,000 to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and $800,000 to the Horace Mann School. From 2011 to 2017, the Fund annually donated $1 million to Yale University, Stanford University, Harvard University, Princeton University, and $500,000 to Columbia University and Brown University. The college donations represent over 60% of the Fund's philanthropy. Shaw was on the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.