Knowledge and Progress Group
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://">http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=182</a>
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PO Box 2256 Wichita, KS 67201
the Knowledge and Progress Fund is a
non profit associated with Charles G Koch. It provides funding only to
Donors Trust, another right-wing foundation. The Kowledge and Progress
Fund has no website.
Richard H. Fink - president
Vonda Holliman - treasurer
Charles C. Koch - director
Charles G. Koch - chairman
Elizabeth B. Koch - director
Elizabeth R. Koch - director
Logan Moore - secretary
</font></p><h3><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">KEY PEOPLE</font></h3><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1070"><b>Charles Koch</b></a>
Chairman/Director
Source: <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=182#src0">Knowledge and Progress Fund 990 - 2010</a>
</font></p><h3><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SOURCES</font></h3><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a name="src" /><a name="src0"><b>Knowledge and Progress Fund 990 - 2010</b>
</a><a href="http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2010/541/899/2010-541899251-07b9608e-F.pdf">http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2010/541/899/2010-541899251-07b9608e-F.pdf</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An organisation that has funneled millions of dollars into groups promoting climate science denial has appointed a new <span class="caps">CEO</span>who signed a declaration dismissing the overwhelming evidence that human activities are causing climate change.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 1.1em;">Lawson Bader, currently the <span class="caps">CEO</span> at the <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/competitive-enterprise-institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Competitive Enterprise Institute</a>, </span><a href="http://www.donorstrust.org/news-notes/donorstrusts-new-ceo/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204); line-height: 1.1em;">will join Donors Trust in November</a><span style="line-height: 14.3px;">.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><span style="line-height: 1.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://desmogblog.com/who-donors-trust" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Donors Trust</a> (<span class="caps">DT</span>), together with its sister organisation <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/donors-capital-fund" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Donors Capital Fund</a> (<span class="caps">DCF</span>), is a key funding arm of the climate science denial movement in the United States.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><span style="line-height: 1.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The organisation creates so called “donor-advised funds” on behalf of wealthy conservatives, and then uses those funds to finance “good conservative and liberty-oriented causes”.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><span style="line-height: 1.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="caps">DT</span> asks potential donors to sign a declaration stating “it is wrong that the fortunes of successful Americans are being used to fund political and social causes that undermine the free market economy.”</font></span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 1.1em;">In September 2014, Bader (pictured), an evangelical Christian, </span><a href="http://www.webcitation.org/6bnMlKlyW" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204); line-height: 1.1em;">signed a declaration organised by the Cornwall Alliance</a><span style="line-height: 1.1em;"> calling on politicians to “abandon fruitless and harmful policies to control global temperature”.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><span style="line-height: 1.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The declaration claimed that “God’s wise design and faithful sustaining” of the Earth would “suppress and correct” any damage, including to the climate.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><span style="line-height: 1.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The declaration promoted a series of misleading statements about the impacts of burning fossil fuels on the world’s climate. The document claimed that rising <span class="caps">CO</span>2 would help the poor and that changes in global temperature were natural.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><span style="line-height: 1.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bader joined <span class="caps">CEI</span> in January 2013 after spending 16 years at the Mercatus Center — a think tank based at George Mason University — where he was vice president.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><span style="line-height: 1.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-deniers/front-groups/mercatus-center/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Greenpeace</a>, during Bader’s time at Mercatus the centre accepted more than $10million in funding from foundations linked to the oil billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><span style="line-height: 1.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Charles Koch and Koch Industries director Richard Fink are both long standing Mercatus board members.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><span style="line-height: 1.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Koch Brothers foundations have also been major backers of the <span class="caps">CEI</span>, a think tank that has also worked to spread doubt over the links between fossil fuel emissions and dangerous climate change. <span class="caps">CEI</span> has also accepted cash from several fossil fuel corporations.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 1.1em;">Last year a <span class="caps">CEI</span> fellow Marlo Lewis claimed that problems caused by rising sea levels, linked to global warming caused by fossil fuel burning, would be easily solved by </span><a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/05/20/the-latest-right-wing-solution-for-sea-level-ri/199401" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204); line-height: 1.1em;">simply moving low lying cities like New York and Boston</a><span style="line-height: 1.1em;">.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 1.1em;">Bader’s move to <span class="caps">DT</span> will see him remain within the funding circle of Republican activists the Koch Brothers. </span><a href="http://desmogblog.com/2015/05/12/exclusive-major-climate-science-denial-funders-donors-trust-and-donors-capital-fund-handled-479-million-untraceable" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204); line-height: 1.1em;">DeSmog analysis</a> <span style="line-height: 1.1em;">has found that one foundation controlled by Charles Koch – the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Knowledge and Progress Fund </span>– gave $7.65 million to <span class="caps">DT</span>between 2010 and 2013. <span class="caps">KPF</span> did not give grants to any other organisation over that period.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 15.73px;"><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/05/12/exclusive-major-climate-science-denial-funders-donors-trust-and-donors-capital-fund-handled-479-million-untraceable">http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/05/12/exclusive-major-climate-science-denial-funders-donors-trust-and-donors-capital-fund-handled-479-million-untraceable</a></span></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://desmogblog.com/2015/05/12/exclusive-major-climate-science-denial-funders-donors-trust-and-donors-capital-fund-handled-479-million-untraceable" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204); line-height: 1.1em;">DeSmog revealed</a><span style="line-height: 1.1em;"> that since 2005, more than $470 million of untraceable money has flowed through <span class="caps">DT</span> and <span class="caps">DCF</span>.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><span style="line-height: 1.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donors Trust had been searching for a new <span class="caps">CEO</span> since prior to the <a href="http://www.donorstrust.org/who-we-are/remembering-whitney-ball/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">death of its founder, Whitney Ball</a>, in August this year</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">refd</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many of the organisations funded by <span class="caps">DT</span> and <span class="caps">DCF</span> are known to have received cash from fossil fuel interests in the past. </font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Both <span class="caps">DT</span> and <span class="caps">DCF</span> say they only give money to projects that will explicitly promote “free markets” and “liberty” and that will lower government involvement in society.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A form on the <span class="caps">DT</span> website asks potential funders to declare that they “agree that it is wrong that the fortunes of successful Americans are being used to fund political and social causes that undermine the free market economy.”</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The cash given through <span class="caps">DT</span> will “fund good conservative and liberty-oriented causes,” the form says.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One major known funder of <span class="caps">DT</span> is the Knowledge and Progress Fund (<span class="caps">KPF</span>) that donated $7.65 million from 2010 to 2013 — the only grants made by the foundation.</font></b></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the <span class="caps">KPF</span> board are oil billionaire and major Republican benefactor Charles Koch, his wife Liz and son Charles Chase Koch. </font></span></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: 18.59px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richard Fink, a Koch company director and long-standing aide to Charles Koch, is also a <span class="caps">KPF</span> director.</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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