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DonorsTrust

Formation	1999
Type	Nonprofit (IRC § 501(c)(3))
Tax ID no.	52-2166327
Location	Alexandria, Virginia, U.S.
Coordinates	38°48′20″N 77°03′37″W / 38.8056°N 77.0603°W / 38.8056; -77.0603
Services	Donor-advised fund
CEO	Lawson Bader
Board of directors	Kimberly Dennis James Piereson Lawson Bader Thomas Beach George G. H. Coates Jr.
Affiliations	Donors Capital Fund
Revenue	$323 million (2022)
Expenses	$248 million (2022)
Endowment	$1.39 billion in assets (2022)
Website	donorstrust.org

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DonorsTrust is an American nonprofit donor-advised fund that was founded in 1999 with the goal of "safeguarding the intent of libertarian and conservative donors". As a donor advised fund, DonorsTrust is not legally required to disclose the identity of its donors, and most of its donors remain anonymous. It distributes funds to various conservative and libertarian organizations.

It is affiliated with Donors Capital Fund, another donor-advised fund. In September 2015, Lawson Bader was announced as the new president of both DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund. Bader was formerly president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Vice President at the Mercatus Center.

Overview

DonorsTrust is a 501(c)(3) organization. As a public charity and a donor-advised fund, DonorsTrust offers clients a variety of tax advantages compared to a private foundation.

DonorsTrust accepts donations from charitable foundations and individuals. Grants from DonorsTrust are based on the preferences of the original contributor, and the organization assures clients that their contributions will never be used to support politically liberal causes. As a donor advised fund, DonorsTrust can offer anonymity to individual donors, with respect to their donations to DonorsTrust, as well as with respect to an individual donor's ultimate grantee.

As a donor advised fund and public charity, DonorsTrust accepts cash or assets from donors, and in turn creates a separate account for the donor, who may recommend disbursements from the fund to other public charities. DonorsTrust requires an initial deposit of $10,000 or more. DonorsTrust is associated with Donors Capital Fund. DonorsTrust refers clients to Donors Capital Fund if the client plans to maintain a balance of $1 million or more. DonorsTrust president Lawson Bader said the goal of the organization is to "safeguard the intent of libertarian and conservative donors," ensuring that funds are used only to promote "liberty through limited government, responsibility, and free enterprise".

History

DonorsTrust was established in 1999 by Whitney Lynn Ball. According to DonorsTrust, the organization was founded by a group of donors and nonprofit executives who were "actively engaged in supporting and promoting a free society as understood in America's founding documents." A major selling point to donors is that even after their death, their money will continue to fund conservative/libertarian goals, and not change based on the attitudes of their heirs or trustees as a family foundation might.

In early 2013, DonorsTrust was the subject of reports by The Independent, The Guardian, Mother Jones, and the Center for Public Integrity. Calling it the "dark money ATM" of the political right, the progressive magazine Mother Jones said DonorsTrust had funded a conservative public policy agenda against labor unions, climate science, public schools, and economic regulations.

In January 2021, CNBC reported that in 2019, DonorsTrust had given millions of dollars to conservative organizations that went on to push claims of election fraud in the 2020 election.

DonorsTrust brought in more than $1 billion in 2021, compared with $191 million for the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a similarly structured funding conduit on the political left.

Donors

As of 2013, DonorsTrust had 193 contributors, mostly individuals, and some foundations.

The Charles G. Koch Foundation contributed millions to DonorsTrust since the mid-2000s. Two Koch brothers, Charles and David Koch, were the top contributors to DonorsTrust in 2011, according to an analysis by the Columbia Journalism Review. In 2010, DonorsTrust received a $2 million grant from the Donors Capital Fund.

DonorsTrust account holders have included the John M. Olin Foundation, the Castle Rock Foundation, the Searle Freedom Trust, and the Bradley Foundation. The Bradley family contributed $650,000 between 2001 and 2010. The DeVos family foundation contributed $1 million in 2009 and $1.5 million in 2010 to Donors Trust.

Robert Mercer and Rebekah Mercer contributed nearly $20 million through DonorsTrust in 2020. Marble Freedom Trust, led by Leonard Leo, gave $41 million to DonorsTrust in 2021 after a donation from Barre Seid.

Recipients

From its founding in 1999 through 2013, DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund distributed nearly $400 million, and through 2015, $740 million, to various nonprofit organizations, including numerous conservative and libertarian causes. DonorsTrust requires that recipients are registered with the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) public charity. Whitney Ball, the former president of the Trust, told The Guardian in 2013 that it has about 1,600 grantees. In 2014, Ball said that 70 to 75 percent of grants go to public policy organizations, with the rest going to more conventional charities such as social service and educational organizations.

In 2010, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation received a DonorsTrust grant of $7 million, nearly half of the Foundation's revenue that year. Other DonorsTrust recipients have included The Heritage Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Rifle Association Freedom Action Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Federalist Society, the FreedomWorks Foundation, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, and the Center for Class Action Fairness.

DonorsTrust paid the legal fees of the Project on Fair Representation, a Washington, D.C.–based legal defense fund that assembled the plaintiff's legal team in Fisher v. University of Texas, a 2013 United States Supreme Court case concerning affirmative action college admissions policies. In 2011, the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, an online conservative news organization, received $6.3 million in DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund grants, 95 percent of the center's revenue that year.

Other DonorsTrust recipients have included the Foundation for Jewish Camp, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the James Randi Educational Foundation, the Marijuana Policy Project, PragerU, Project Veritas, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, VDARE, and the New Century Foundation.

DonorsTrust CEO Bader told Inside Philanthropy in 2021 that his fund had seen "a noticeable uptick of account rollovers" from non-ideological donor-advised funds he said had slowed or stopped grant-making to political causes.

Climate change contrarian funding

DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund have been major sources of funding for conservative groups with contrarian stances on climate change.

The Guardian reported DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund distributed nearly $120 million to 102 think tanks and action groups "which have a record of denying the existence of a human factor in climate change, or opposing environmental regulations" between 2002 and 2010. According to an analysis by Drexel University environmental sociologist Robert Brulle, between 2003 and 2010, DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund combined were the largest funders of organizations opposed to restrictions on carbon emissions. By 2009, approximately one-quarter of the funding of what Brulle calls the "climate change counter-movement" came from grants via DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund.

As of 2010, DonorsTrust grants to conservative and libertarian organizations active in climate change issues included more than $17 million to the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank; $13.5 million to the Heartland Institute, a public policy think tank; and $11 million to Americans for Prosperity, a political advocacy group. In 2011, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), a conservative Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit organization, received $1.2 million from Donors Trust, 40 percent of CFACT's revenue in that year. Climate change writer Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon received hundreds of thousands of dollars from DonorsTrust. In 2015, The Guardian reported that Donors Trust gave $4.3 million to the Competitive Enterprise Institute over three years.

State-based policy funding

Between 2008 and 2013, DonorsTrust granted $10 million to the State Policy Network (SPN), a national network of conservative and libertarian think tanks focused on state-level policy. SPN used the grants to incubate new think tanks in Arkansas, Rhode Island and Florida. DonorsTrust also issued grants to SPN's affiliates at the state level during the same period. The American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit organization of conservative state legislators and private sector representatives that drafts and shares model state-level legislation, is a DonorsTrust recipient.

Elections and the judiciary

In 2018, the organization funded more than 99% of the Judicial Education Project, a legal alias for Honest Elections Project and The 85 Fund.

Board of directors

The board of directors of DonorsTrust includes:

• Kimberly Dennis, chairman – president of the Searle Freedom Trust
• Lawson Bader, president and CEO – DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund
• James Piereson, vice chairman – conservative scholar and president of the William E. Simon Foundation
• Thomas E. Beach
• George G.H. Coates Jr. – chairman of the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives

See also

• Citizens for Self-Governance
• Convention of States Project
• Open the States & Convention of States Action

References

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29. Miller, John J. (November 8, 2007). "Daniel C. Searle, R.I.P." National Review. Archived from the original on August 3, 2016. Retrieved March 6, 2015.
30. ^ Schwartz, Brian (September 15, 2021). "Mercer family played bigger role in 2020 election than thought, giving nearly $20 million to dark money GOP fund". CNBC. Retrieved December 16, 2024. In 2019, the Donors Trust, sent donations to groups such as Turning Point USA, which is led by vocal Trump supporter Charlie Kirk; and the VDARE Foundation, which the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled a hate group.
31. Griffin, Casey Tolan,Curt Devine,Drew (August 22, 2022). "Massive dark money windfall: New conservative group got $1.6 billion from single donor". CNN. Retrieved January 7, 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
32. Goodman, Amy (February 19, 2013). "Donors Trust: Little-Known Group Helps Wealthy Backers Fund Right-Wing Agenda in Secret". Democracy Now!. Archived from the original on March 13, 2015. Retrieved March 15, 2015.
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34. Connor, Steve (January 24, 2013). "How the 'Kochtopus' stifled green debate; Behind the climate 'countermovement' are two billionaire brothers". The Independent. Archived from the original on April 21, 2015. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
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37. Zahorsky, Rachel (April 1, 2010). "Unsettling Advocate". ABA Journal. American Bar Association. Archived from the original on March 1, 2015. Retrieved March 6, 2015.
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39. "Koch-funded charity passes money to free-market think tanks in states". Center for Public Integrity. February 14, 2013. Retrieved December 16, 2024 – via NBC News.
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41. "Marijuana Policy Project". OpenSecrets. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
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45. Wuest, Joanna; Last, Briana S. (2024). "Church Against State: How Industry Groups Lead the Religious Liberty Assault on Civil Rights, Healthcare Policy, and the Administrative State" (PDF). The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics (52): 151–168. A 2022 investigative report revealed that DonorsTrust — a fundraising operation known as the "dark money ATM" of contemporary conservative politics — had funneled millions of dollars into religious liberty legal organizations. Among the recipients was the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, an organization renowned for its litigation against LGBTQ+ rights and the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) contraceptive mandate as well as its legal support for overturning the constitutional right to an abortion.
46. ^ Fraga, Brian (January 21, 2022). "Right-wing Catholic causes got millions from group that funded some Capitol rioters". National Catholic Reporter. The organization, known as Donors Trust, has been described as a "dark money ATM" for the political right...
47. "After Trump, What's Happening at DonorsTrust, the Right's Favorite DAF?". Inside Philanthropy. June 9, 2021. Retrieved January 7, 2025. As Bader tells it, DonorsTrust has gotten a definite boost from fears of so-called 'cancel culture' coming to the DAF world. "The fact that Fidelity Charitable (and some community foundations) refusing to honor grant recommendations (or at least slowing down the process) to various 'conservative policy' groups, combined with the recent decision by the Goldman Sachs DAF to cease grantmaking to all perceived 'policy' groups—on left and right—has resulted in a noticeable uptick of account rollovers from these groups," Bader said. The concern is that such a pattern could spread further afield to Schwab, Vanguard and the like. "Fortunately," Bader said, "in this market, there are alternative choices, and DonorsTrust is benefiting from that."
48. Coan, Travis G.; Boussalis, Constantine; Cook, John; Nanko, Mirjam O. (November 16, 2021). "Computer-assisted classification of contrarian claims about climate change". Scientific Reports. 11 (1). doi:10.1038/s41598-021-01714-4. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 8595491. PMID 34785707. Notably, prominent contrarian CTTs such as the Heartland Institute are heavily dependent upon these key donors and, in particular the "donor-advised" funding flows from Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, which ensure anonymous funding to conservative causes
49. Brulle, Robert J.; Hall, Galen; Loy, Loredana; Schell-Smith, Kennedy (May 2021). "Obstructing action: foundation funding and US climate change counter-movement organizations" (PDF). Climatic Change. 166 (1–2). doi:10.1007/s10584-021-03117-w. ISSN 0165-0009. Donors Trust and DCF alone account for 13.7% of grants.
50. Brulle, Robert J. (December 21, 2013). "Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations". Climatic Change. 122 (4): 681–94. doi:10.1007/s10584-013-1018-7. S2CID 27538787.
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52. Basken, Paul (February 25, 2015). "A Climate Crusader Melts, Exposing a Profitable Link to Harvard's Name". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Archived from the original on March 3, 2015. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
53. Goldenberg, Suzanne; Bengtsson, Helena (June 9, 2015). "Secretive donors gave US climate denial groups $125m over three years". The Guardian. Archived from the original on November 30, 2016. Retrieved November 30, 2016.
54. Levine, Sam; Massoglia, Anna (May 27, 2020). "Revealed: conservative group fighting to restrict voting tied to powerful dark money network". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on May 28, 2020. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
55. Swan, Jonathan; Treene, Alayna. "Leonard Leo to shape new conservative network, step aside from the Federalist Society". Axios. Archived from the original on June 14, 2020. Retrieved June 15, 2020.
56. "Conservative 'dark money' network rebranded to push voting restrictions before 2020 election". OpenSecrets. May 27, 2020. Archived from the original on March 11, 2022. Retrieved May 28, 2020.

External links

• Official website
• Organizational Profile – National Center for Charitable Statistics (Urban Institute)
• "DonorsTrust Internal Revenue Service filings". ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer.

• Non-profit organizations based in Alexandria, Virginia
• Charities based in Virginia
• Organizations established in 1999
• Conservative organizations in the United States
• 1999 establishments in Virginia