Donors Trust, also known as the “dark money ATM of the right,” funneled $257,600 to six organizations that have been designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Accountable.US review of Donors Trust’s 2022 tax filing revealed.
The David Horowitz Freedom Center, an SPLC-designated anti-Muslim hate group, received the highest amount of donations totaling $142,000, followed by The VDARE Foundation, a white nationalist hate group, which received $34,500.
The Thomas More Law Center, another SPLC-designated hate group and “religious-right organization,” which has worked to overturn federal hate crimes law, pulled in $30,000. No Left Turn in Education and the Center for Immigration Studies both received $20,000 each while the Family Research Council pulled in $11,100.
It comes as “no surprise” that Donors Trust dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into “known radical hate groups,” Caroline Ciccone, Accountable.US president, told Salon. “Donors Trust has become infamous as a massive war chest for the far-right’s most extreme causes,” Ciccone said.
The David Horowitz Freedom Center, which was initially founded as the Center for the Study of Popular Culture in Los Angeles to “establish a conservative presence in Hollywood,” was later rebranded to focus on “the efforts of the radical left and its Islamist allies to destroy American values,” according to SPLC. Since then, the center has launched a network of projects giving anti-Muslim voices and radical ideologies a platform to promote hate and misinformation.
The organization has emerged as a leading sponsor of conferences and seminars promoting anti-Muslim sentiments in Horowitz's network to organizing elaborate weekend retreats that bring together government officials with influential figures and activists from the far-right. David Horowitz himself has been “a driving force of the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black movements,” since the late 1980s, SPLC noted.
Donors Trust also has a history of funding groups linked to white supremacists, giving more than $2 million in donations. One such organization is the VDARE Foundation, whose founder believes that diversity has weakened the United States, and that the increase in Spanish speakers is a “ferocious attack on the living standards of the American working class,” The New York Times reported in 2019.
VDARE.com has been labeled a “hate website” by SPLC for its ties to white nationalists and “academic proponents of scientific racism.” It has provided favorable coverage of the white nationalist movement, engaged key propagandists associated with the movement and actively taken part in various white nationalist events all while cultivating relationships with like-minded extremists within conservative circles. In 2019, the foundation received $1.5 million from Donors Trust.
We need your help to stay independent
The main concern with groups like Donors Trust, a donor-advised nonprofit that directs money to other organizations and groups aiming to shape policy, is that “they facilitate the funding of controversy,” Roger Colinvaux, a professor of law at the Catholic University of America, told Salon.
“A DAF allows a donor to launder their identity through the DAF,” Colinvaux said. “This is even better than anonymous giving, because the actual donor is the DAF sponsor, not the donor advisor.”
With regular anonymous giving, the gift is still actually from the anonymous donor. But a DAF grant legally is from the DAF sponsor, not the person who funded the gift or provided the advice, he explained.
“I think this makes a difference because it interposes an entity between the true donor and the controversial group, giving funders distance to support causes without accountability,” Colinvaux said.
Donors, who might not feel comfortable making direct contributions to certain groups, can hide behind a DAF.
“So, in this regard, I think DAFs are harmful to the broader charitable sector overall because they amplify controversy, and the charitable sector in turn becomes more and more associated with controversy instead of with what many people think of as core charity – helping those in need,” Colinvaux added.
Donors Trust primarily funds conservative and libertarian groups. The 501(c)(3) charity operates quietly but wields significant influence as a financial hub for the conservative movement. It has channeled millions of dollars in anonymous contributions to support various right-leaning causes, including giving a $48.7 million gift in 2020 and $17.1 million in 2021 to the 85 Fund, a group founded by right-wing legal activist Leonard Leo, more prominently known for his role in building the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court. In turn, the 85 Fund gave Donors Trust over $12.4 million in 2020 and $71.1 million in 2021, according to Accountable.US.
Donors Trust has been involved in funneling millions of dollars to other organizations like the Heritage Foundation, the NRA’s Freedom Action Foundation, the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Federalist Society and the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.
In 2022, the group directed over $16.5 million exclusively to organizations affiliated with Project 2025, NBC News reported. One of the groups, the Teneo Network, which received the largest contribution exceeding $3 million, serves as a crucial source of talent for the conservative movement across different sectors including business, media, finance, entertainment, and politics.
In the past, the dark-money group has offered nearly $10 million in anonymous donations to various organizations that contested the 2020 election and propagated unsupported allegations of voter fraud, according to The Daily Beast.
Two of those groups played major roles in the events surrounding Jan. 6. The Tea Party Patriots, listed as a rally organizer, received $250,000 and Turning Point, a right-wing group led by Charlie Kirk, provided buses to D.C. and participated in the "March to Save America" before the event. In total, Turning Point groups received $780,000 in trust contributions in 2020, The Beast reported.
Describing itself as “a charitable savings account”— Donors Trust serves as an intermediary that enables wealthy donors to deposit funds in bulk, which are then invested for tax-free growth. Those contributing to the DAF don’t have the final say over where their money goes, but they do get to suggest what areas or causes they wish to support.
Donor-advised funds such as Donors Trust, Fidelity Charitable and Vanguard Charitable effectively act as “pass-throughs” to shield the true source of funds, Anna Massoglia, editorial and investigations manager at OpenSecrets, told Salon. Major donors are relying on DAFs to give to groups advocating around divisive issues or with other controversial activities since the donor-advised fund can "act as a buffer" between the recipient and the donor.
Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.
“Multiple major donor-advised funds have provided support to organizations that SPLC has labeled as hate groups, raising millions for those groups while shrouding donors' identities,” Massoglia said. “The anonymity provided by donor-advised funds like Donors Trust can enable donors to secretly steer funds to groups that advocate for controversial causes with few — if any — repercussions.”
Donors Trust has received support from a number of conservative benefactors including Charles Koch, the DeVoses and the Bradleys.
Being one of the most influential conduits of funds in Republican-leaning circles, Donors Trust amasses power and influence in the broader conservative movement. Tax records reveal that the nonprofit has used this influence to fund extremist groups.
“The lack of public oversight and knowledge surrounding donor-advised funds leaves the public in the dark about the identities of donors fueling causes that are considered controversial or and views that may be considered extreme…” Massoglia said. “With these funds contributing to organizations designated as hate groups, the absence of transparency impedes the public's understanding of the financial forces shaping conservative initiatives. Major donor-advised funds from steering contributions from secret donors to organizations labeled as hate groups underscores the need for screening processes when vetting the beneficiaries of funds.”
Shares