Donors capital fund
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sort of a disambiguation page 12/16</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Brulle RJ, Hall G, Loy L, Schell-Smith K. 2021. <b>“Obstructing action: foundation funding and US climate change counter-movement organizations</b>,” Climatic Change. <b>2021</b>;166(1):17.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Obstructing action: foundation funding and US climate</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">change counter-movement organizations</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Robert J. Brulle1 & Galen Hall1 & Loredana Loy2 & Kennedy Schell-Smith1</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Received: 1 February 2021 / Accepted: 28 April 2021/</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"># The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2021</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a 2016 congressional hearing on the climate crisis, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) held</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">up a book entitled Why Scientists Disagree About Climate Change and asked: “Who funded</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">this phony climate science denial textbook that the Heartland Institute published and mailed to</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">thousands of schoolteachers around the country? ... We know it costs a lot of money to print</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[but] we don’t know who paid for it!” (SDC 2019). The publisher of the “textbook” was the</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heartland Institute, a central organization in the <b>Climate Change Counter-Movement (CCCM).</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The CCCM is a complex network of organizations that functions to obstruct climate action</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(Brulle 2020). Senator Whitehouse’s question points to the extensive network of anonymous</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">funders that supports the CCCM. This anonymous funding allows unaccountable, unknown</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">entities to promote climate misinformation and obstruct climate action. Several analyses have</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">shown that this deliberate and organized effort to misdirect and distort public discussion of</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">climate change drives widespread misunderstanding of climate science and legislative gridlock</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">on the issue (NRC 2011, p. 35).</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For these ongoing efforts to continue, it is imperative that CCCM organizations mobilize</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sufficient financial resources (Jenkins 1983). Thus, an examination of the funding sources of</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the CCCM can provide a deeper understanding of the institutional dimensions of this effort.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The effort to understand the financial support of the CCCM has been the topic of scholarly</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">concern (Brulle 2014; Farrell 2015, 2016, 2019). <b>The most extensive analysis was that of</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Brulle (2014). </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In his analysis, he found that over the time period 2003 to 2010, the majority of</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">identifiable CCCM funding came from several conservative philanthropies and, increasingly,</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">through Donors Trust, a donor-directed philanthropy designed to preserve funders’ anonymity.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In this research, we revisit and update Brulle’s initial analysis. We double the timespan of the</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">prior study, analyzing data from 2003 to 2018, add an analysis of the amount of unidentifiable</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">funds supporting the CCCM, and considerably sharpen prior estimates by approximating the</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">proportion of this funding that directly supports work on climate change.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>2 Findings</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A small group of foundations constitute the core of financial support for the CCCM. Figure 1</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">shows the top grant makers and recipients in the CCCM by total grants given or received. The</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">top 1% of grant makers account for 67% of grants, and the top 10% of grant makers account</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">for 94% of grants</span>. <b>Similarly, seven CCCM organizations (5%) receive 50% of all grants.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);"> The</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">top three grant recipients—the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Hoover Institution—have remained unchanged since Brulle’s (2014) analysis, with some shifts</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">in the order of smaller grant recipients. The top grant makers have changed slightly: the</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">network remains dominated by the Donors Trust and </font><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b>Donors Capital Fund (DCF)</b></font><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);"> and the</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Scaife, Bradley, and Koch family foundations, with the Devos family foundations now among</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">the top ten as well. Donors Trust and DCF alone account for 13.7% of grants. </font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);"><b>These</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">organizations are Donor Advised Funds (DAF),</span> with a central role in coordinating donations</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>to CCCM and conservative organizations while keeping their core donors anonymous.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Alongside donations through DAFs, 74% of all contributions to CCCM organizations over</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">the sample period come from completely unidentified sources</span>. Figure 2 shows a sociogram of</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">the top 1% of grant makers and recipients in the network by total grants given/received, where</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">each line represents all grants between two actors over the sample period, with contribution</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...[graphs]</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">totals less than $5000 removed for clarity<b>. Unidentified contributions are represented by a</b></font></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>single node to demonstrate their prevalence, although they come from many anonymous</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>donors<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Individual organizations received between 25 and 100% of their contributions from</span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">unidentified sources, </span>with no strong (p < 0.05) correlations with organizational assets,</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> revenues, or the proportion of documents relevant to climate change.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Overall, the funding of organizations that make up the CCCM grew steadily between 2003</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>and 2018 in terms of both total contributions and foundation grants.</b> Figure 3a displays yearly</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">total contributions to the 128 recipient organizations, with grants from the top 100 donors</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">distinguished by the category of the grant maker. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Contributions increased steadily over the</span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">sample period, from $357 million in 2003 to $808 million in 2018, with a peak at $811 million</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">in 2012. </span></font></font></font></p></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">....</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Our analysis also supports the finding that funding strategies differ between progressive and</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>conservative philanthropists. </b>We find a striking stability in funding over the 16-year time</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">period. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The funding strategy of the conservative movement was laid out in the so-called Fat</span></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Memo (Miller 2005), which informed the giving practices of the Olin Foundation, the first</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">major conservative philanthropy, and subsequent conservative donors</span>. These funding efforts</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">focus on the development and promulgation of a clear conservative viewpoint. To realize that</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">effort, conservative philanthropies have funded a range of organizations that act to realize that</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">goal on <b>a long-term basis. This strategy focused on the creation and maintenance of conservative </b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>think tanks, development of public intellectuals (“thought leaders”), and promulgation</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>of a consistent ideological message</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Additionally, conservative foundations focus on building</span></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">institutional capacity in organizations with strong communications capabilities</span> (Covington</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1997; Barley 2010).</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>This consistent and long-term funding strategy has enabled the development of a cohesive</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>institutional network of conservative organizations that work collectively to promulgate a</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>consistent message.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This strategy stands in marked contrast to the funding strategy of</span></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">progressive foundations, which focus on individual research projects and short-term efforts.</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Consequently, the progressive activist organizations and think tanks form a very loose and</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>disconnected network </b>(Barley 2010, p. 792). This differs significantly from the very tight</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">network of organizations and think tanks that comprise the conservative movement. The</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">analysis confirms the long-term stable funding that maintains the CCCM.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>This analysis still leaves Senator Whitehouse’s question unanswered. The source of over</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>three-quarters of the funding of the CCCM cannot be identified. </b>While some of this funding</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">could come from small donations<b>, the existing IRS disclosure rules do not enable any further</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>investigation in this area</b>. Further research is needed to develop new means to extend our</font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /></font></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">understanding of the unidentified funders that created and maintain the CCCM.[refs]</font></p></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ctr a</font><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">merican Progress | Fear, Inc.</span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><b>Donors Capital Fund</b></div><div>
</div><div>Donors Capital Fund is a 501(c)(3), 509(a)(3) supporting organization associated</div><div>with DonorsTrust, a so-called “donor-advised fund” that disburses money</div><div>based on the directions of a donor. Since the fund handles money from multiple</div><div>donors and donors names aren’t disclosed, contributions made through the</div><div>Donors Capital Fund are difficult to trace. Potential donors are required to open a</div><div>minimum $1 million account to utilize the fund’s services.4</div><div>
</div><div>The Donors Capital Fund facilitates philanthropic contributions to “a class of</div><div>public charities firmly committed to liberty” and charities that “[promote] private</div><div>initiatives rather than government programs as the solution to the most pressing</div><div>issues of the day.”5</div><div>
</div><div><b> The board</b> of Donors Capital Fund has several well-known</div><div>conservatives. The chair is Adam Meyerson, the president of the Philanthropy</div><div>Roundtable, a national association of individual donors and trustees.</div><div>In addition, it includes Senior Fellow Christopher DeMuth of the American</div><div>Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington, D.C., think tank with a history</div><div>of fostering an aggressive U.S. foreign policy, and his colleague AEI</div><div>Weyerhauser Fellow Steven Hayward.</div><div>
</div><div> Other board members include: Acton</div><div>Institute (a conservative Christian think tank) Executive Director Kris Alan</div><div>Mauren; Institute for Justice (a libertarian public interest law firm) President</div><div>William H. Mellor; conservative economist and Wall Street Journal editorial</div><div>page columnist Stephen Moore; and Heritage Foundation Vice President John</div><div>A. Von Kannon, representing the top conservative think tank in the country.6</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>In 2009, Donors Capital Fund provided nearly $60 million in contributions to</b></div><div><b>a variety of mainstream conservative groups, none of which are Islamophobic.</b></div><div>Donations included: the American Enterprise Institute ($2.7 million); the antiregulatory</div><div>Americans for Prosperity Foundation ($1.1 million); the Sam Adams</div><div>Alliance, which seeks to “raise awareness of free market principles and policy”</div><div>($3.2 million);7</div><div>
</div><div> the Heartland Institute, an advocate of free-market principles</div><div>and partner with cigarette maker Philip Morris ($2.2 million);8</div><div> the State Policy</div><div>
</div><div>Network, a network of free market-oriented think tanks ($2.6 million); and the</div><div>Federalist Society, a conservative organization that promotes an originalist interpretation</div><div>of the Constitution ($1.3 million).</div><div>
</div><div>Donors to the Islamophobia network | www.americanprogress.org 17</div><div>
</div><div><b>The Donors Capital Fund makes our top seven list of contributors in this report</b></div><div><b>because it contributed $21,318,600 to groups promoting Islamophobia from 2007</b></div><div><b>to 2009. </b>These funds went to the Middle East Forum, Clarion Fund, Investigative</div><div>Project on Terrorism, and the David Horowitz Freedom Center.</div><div>Donors Capital is most famous for contributing more than $17 million to the</div><div>Clarion Fund in 2008, the largest recipient of Donors Capital’s largesse “by a large</div><div>margin,” according to CounterPunch’s Pam Marten.9</div><div>
</div><div> Indeed, Donors Capital Fund’s contributions made up 96 percent of all the funding Clarion Fund received</div><div>that year.10 That $17 million, provided by a single anonymous source (who is</div><div>alleged to be<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> <b>Chicago businessman Barre Seid</b>, according to the website Salon.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">com11), helped pay for a DVD the Clarion Fund distributed, “Obsession: Radical</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Islam’s War Against the West,” to more than 28 million swing-state voters before</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">the 2008 presidential election</span>.12</div><div>
</div><div>And that DVD, says the Florida Security Council’s director Tom Trento, who</div><div>helped distribute the film in 2008, is “the single most powerful piece of media</div><div>over the past five years in persuading average Americans to the Islamist threat.”13</div><div>In the subsequent chapters of this report, we’ll demonstrate just how accurate</div><div>Trento’s observation is.</div><div>
</div><div>Reached for comment, a Donors Capital Fund executive said DFC was</div><div>established to promote liberty and so long as recommended groups are IRSapproved</div><div>charities eligible for grants then DFC will honor account advisor</div><div>recommendation</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/08/pdf/islamophobia_chapter1.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">merican Progress | Fear, Inc.
Donors Capital Fund
Donors Capital Fund is a 501(c)(3), 509(a)(3) supporting organization associated
with DonorsTrust, a so-called “donor-advised fund” that disburses money
based on the directions of a donor. Since the fund handles money from multiple
donors and donors names aren’t disclosed, contributions made through the
Donors Capital Fund are difficult to trace. Potential donors are required to open a
minimum $1 million account to utilize the fund’s services.4
The Donors Capital Fund facilitates philanthropic contributions to “a class of
public charities firmly committed to liberty” and charities that “[promote] private
initiatives rather than government programs as the solution to the most pressing
issues of the day.”5
The board of Donors Capital Fund has several well-known
conservatives. The chair is Adam Meyerson, the president of the Philanthropy
Roundtable, a national association of individual donors and trustees.
In addition, it includes Senior Fellow Christopher DeMuth of the American
Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington, D.C., think tank with a history
of fostering an aggressive U.S. foreign policy, and his colleague AEI
Weyerhauser Fellow Steven Hayward. Other board members include: Acton
Institute (a conservative Christian think tank) Executive Director Kris Alan
Mauren; Institute for Justice (a libertarian public interest law firm) President
William H. Mellor; conservative economist and Wall Street Journal editorial
page columnist Stephen Moore; and Heritage Foundation Vice President John
A. Von Kannon, representing the top conservative think tank in the country.6
In 2009, Donors Capital Fund provided nearly $60 million in contributions to
a variety of mainstream conservative groups, none of which are Islamophobic.
Donations included: the American Enterprise Institute ($2.7 million); the antiregulatory
Americans for Prosperity Foundation ($1.1 million); the Sam Adams
Alliance, which seeks to “raise awareness of free market principles and policy”
($3.2 million);7
the Heartland Institute, an advocate of free-market principles
and partner with cigarette maker Philip Morris ($2.2 million);8
the State Policy
Network, a network of free market-oriented think tanks ($2.6 million); and the
Federalist Society, a conservative organization that promotes an originalist interpretation
of the Constitution ($1.3 million).
Donors to the Islamophobia network | www.americanprogress.org 17
The Donors Capital Fund makes our top seven list of contributors in this report
because it contributed $21,318,600 to groups promoting Islamophobia from 2007
to 2009. These funds went to the Middle East Forum, Clarion Fund, Investigative
Project on Terrorism, and the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Donors Capital is most famous for contributing more than $17 million to the
Clarion Fund in 2008, the largest recipient of Donors Capital’s largesse “by a large
margin,” according to CounterPunch’s Pam Marten.9
Indeed, Donors Capital
Fund’s contributions made up 96 percent of all the funding Clarion Fund received
that year.10 That $17 million, provided by a single anonymous source (who is
alleged to be Chicago businessman Barre Seid, according to the website Salon.
com11), helped pay for a DVD the Clarion Fund distributed, “Obsession: Radical
Islam’s War Against the West,” to more than 28 million swing-state voters before
the 2008 presidential election.12
And that DVD, says the Florida Security Council’s director Tom Trento, who
helped distribute the film in 2008, is “the single most powerful piece of media
over the past five years in persuading average Americans to the Islamist threat.”13
In the subsequent chapters of this report, we’ll demonstrate just how accurate
Trento’s observation is.
Reached for comment, a Donors Capital Fund executive said DFC was
established to promote liberty and so long as recommended groups are IRSapproved
charities eligible for grants then DFC will honor account advisor
recommendation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div>