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Donors Trust is a nonprofit donor advised fund which offers anonymity to people who wish to contribute to nonprofit entities, including conservative and libertarian organizations, but who do not wish to make their donations public. Based in Virginia, it is affiliated with Donors Capital Fund, another donor advised fund.

History

Donors Trust was established in 1999 by a group of donors and nonprofit executives with the common goal of “promoting our free society as understood in America’s founding documents.” According to Donors Trust, the organization was founded "to ensure the intent of donors who are dedicated to the ideals of limited government, personal responsibility, and free enterprise." Donors Trust files with the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization.

Donors Trust relies on donors from charitable foundations and individuals. Grants from Donors Trust are based on the preferences of the original contributor. Donors Trust assures donors that their contributions will never be used to support liberal causes. Donors Trust offers anonymity to individual donors, with respect to their donations to Donors Trust, as well as with respect to an individual donor's ultimate grantee. Donors Trust is associated with Donors Capital Fund. Donors Trust refers clients to Donors Capital Fund if the client plans to maintain a balance of $1 million or more.

In early 2013 Donors Trust was the subject of investigative journalism reports, including those of the British daily newspaper The Independent, the progressive news magazine Mother Jones, the British daily newspaper The Guardian, NBC News, and the media watchdog group the Center for Public Integrity. Mother Jones described Donors Trust as having "funded the right's assault on labor unions, climate scientists, public schools, economic regulations, and the very premise of activist government" while having "mostly avoided any real scrutiny." Donors Trust was the subject of a February, 2013 segment on Democracy Now!, a daily progressive, nonprofit, independently broadcast syndicated news hour.

According to Whitney Ball, the president of Donors Trust, 70 to 75 percent of the gifts to the organization go to public policy organizations, with the rest going to more conventional charities such as social service and educational organizations.

Donors

Donors Trust requires an initial deposit of $10,000 or more. As of 2013, Donors Trust had 193 contributors, mostly individuals, and some foundations.

Individual Donors Trust account holders include American businessmen Richard DeVos, co-founder of Amway; Paul Singer, hedge fund manager, investor, philanthropist, and political activist; and entrepreneur Philip Anschutz. The DeVos family foundation contributed $1 million in 2009 and $1.5 million in 2010.

The Knowledge and Progress Fund, chaired and funded by Charles Koch, and the Charles G. Koch Foundation contributed $3.3 million to Donors Trust between 2007 and 2011. The Koch brothers were Donors Trust's top contributors in 2011. Other conservative foundation Donors Trust account holders include the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation; the John M. Olin Foundation, a grant-making foundation established in 1953; the Castle Rock Foundation, founded with a 1993 endowment from the Adolph Coors Foundation; and the Searle Freedom Trust, founded by American businessman, heir and philanthropist Daniel C. Searle to support free market economics. The Bradley family contributed $650,000 between 2001 and 2010.

Recipients

Since its founding in 1999, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund have distributed nearly $400 million to various nonprofit organizations, including numerous conservative and libertarian causes. In 2010, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation received a Donors Trust grant of $7 million, nearly half of the Foundation's revenue that year. Other conservative and libertarian Donors Trust recipients include the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C. think tank; Americans for Tax Reform, a taxpayer advocacy group; the National Rifle Association Freedom Action Foundation; the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank; the Federalist Society, an organization seeking textualist or originalist reform of the American legal system; the FreedomWorks Foundation; the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which provides free legal assistance to employees who claim that their civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism; and the Center for Class Action Fairness, which represents consumers dissatisfied with their counsel in class actions.

Other Donors Trust recipients have included the Foundation for Jewish Camp and the Marijuana Policy Project.

Climate change related funding

Between 2002 and 2010, Donors Trust and the Donors Capital Fund distributed $118 million "to 102 thinktanks or action groups which have a record of denying the existence of a human factor in climate change, or opposing environmental regulations." According to a 2013 analysis by Drexel University environmental sociologist Robert Brulle, between 2003 and 2013 Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund combined were the largest funders of organizations opposed to restrictions on carbon emissions, which Brulle calls the "climate change counter-movement." According to Brulle, by 2009, approximately one-quarter of the funding of the climate counter-movement was from the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund.

As of 2010, Donors Trust grants to conservative and libertarian organizations active in climate issues included more than $17 million to the American Enterprise Institute, a not-for-profit think tank; $13.5 million to the Heartland Institute, a public policy think tank; and $11 million to Americans for Prosperity, the political advocacy group. In 2011, the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, an online news organization, received $6.3 million in Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund grants, 95% of the Center's revenue that year. In 2011, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), the conservative Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization, received $1.2 million from Donors Trust, 40% of CFACT's revenue in that year. Climate change writer Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Donors Trust.

State-based policy funding

Between 2008 and 2013, Donors Trust 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. Donors Trust 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 Donors Trust recipient.

Board of directors

The board of Donors Trust includes:

• Whitney Ball, President & CEO. Ball is formerly the Executive Director of the nonprofit Philanthropy Roundtable and Director of Development at the Cato Institute, a US libertarian think tank. She is a member of the board of directors of the Donors Capital Fund and the State Policy Network.
• Kimberly Dennis, Chairman; President of the Searle Freedom Trust.
• James Piereson, Vice Chairman; American conservative scholar and President of the William E. Simon Foundation.
• William J. Hume, American heir, businessman and conservative philanthropist and Chairman of the Board of Basic American Foods.

References

1. ^ "2012 IRS Form 990" (PDF). GuideStar. IRS. Retrieved February 7, 2015.
2. ^ "Donors Trust Officers & Directors". Donors Trust. Retrieved February 7, 2015.
3. ^ Abowd, Paul (February 14, 2013). "Donors use charity to push free-market policies in states". Center for Public Integrity. Retrieved February 7, 2015.
4. ^ Zeiser, Bill (September 24, 2014). "Dark Money". National Review. Retrieved February 7, 2015.
5. ^ "Mission & Principles". Donors Trust. Retrieved February 7, 2015.
6. ^ Goldenberg, Suzanne (February 15, 2013). "Media campaign against windfarms funded by anonymous conservatives". The Guardian. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
7. ^ 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): 681–694. doi:10.1007/s10584-013-1018-7.
8. ^ Goldenberg, Suzanne (February 14, 2013). "Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks". The Guardian. Retrieved February 7, 2015.
9. ^ Hickley, Walter (February 12, 2013). "Inside The Secretive Dark-Money Organization That's Keeping The Lights On For Conservative Groups". Business Insider. Retrieved February 14, 2013.
10. "The future of donor-advised funds" (PDF). Philanthropy Roundtable. September 2005. Retrieved February 10, 2015.
11. "FAQs". Donors Trust. Retrieved February 19, 2015.
12. ^ "Robert Brulle: Inside the Climate Change "Countermovement"". Frontline. PBS. October 23, 2012. Retrieved February 21, 2015. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help)
13. "What is Donors Capital Fund?". Donors Capital Fund. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
14. ^ Connor, Steve (January 24, 2013). "Exclusive: Billionaires secretly fund attacks on climate science". The Independent. Retrieved February 7, 2015.
15. ^ Kroll, Andy (February 5, 2013). "Exposed: The Dark-Money ATM of the Conservative Movement". Mother Jones. Retrieved February 20, 2015.
16. ^ Kroll, Andy (February 11, 2013). "Exclusive: Donors Trust, The Right's Dark-Money ATM, Paid Out $30 Million in 2011". Mother Jones. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
17. ^ Goldenberg, Suzanne (February 14, 2013). "How Donors Trust distributed millions to anti-climate groups". The Guardian. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
18. ^ Abowd, Paul (February 14, 2013). "Koch-funded charity passes money to free-market think tanks in states". NBC News. NBC News. Retrieved February 16, 2015.
19. Goodman, Amy (February 19, 2013). "The ATM for Climate Denial: Secretive Donors Trust Funds Vast Network of Global Warming Skeptics". Democracy Now!. Retrieved March 9, 2015. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help)
20. "Guidelines". Donors Trust. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
21. Lewis, Charles; Holmberg, Eric; Fernandez Campbell, Alexia; Beyoud, Lydia (July 1, 2013). "Koch millions spread influence through nonprofits, colleges". Investigative Reporting Workshop. American University School of Communication. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
22. ^ Bennett, Laurie (March 31, 2012). "Tracking Koch Money and Americans for Prosperity". Forbes. Retrieved March 3, 2015.
23. Chavkin, Sasha (April 22, 2013). "The Koch brothers' media investment". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
24. Miller, John J. (November 8, 2007). "Daniel C. Searle, R.I.P." National Review. Retrieved March 6, 2015.
25. Zahorsky, Rachel (April 1, 2010). "Unsettling Advocate". ABA Journal. American Bar Association.
26. "Marijuana Policy Project". OpenSecrets.org. Center for Responsive Politics. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
27. Gillis, Justin; Schwartz, John (February 21, 2015). "Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher". New York Times. Retrieved March 3, 2015.

External links

• Official site
• Organizational Profile – National Center for Charitable Statistics (Urban Institute)
• Nonprofit Explorer - Donors Trust Inc, archive of federal disclosures maintained by ProPublica

• Non-profit organizations based in Alexandria, Virginia
• 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations
• Organizations established in 1999
• Conservatism in the United States